Deceit

"Just a minute." Green ducked back into the bedroom, slipped on and hooked her bra then gathered her skirt, blouse and shoes and went to join Cahill in the sitting room. "Same team's okay with me. I know my motivations for helping the President. What are yours? I mean, what I never figured out is how the President ended with a hard case like you as his private spy master."

Cahill smiled slightly, "He never told you?"

"No. He refuses to talk about you whenever I raise the subject."

"Really?

"You knew I supplied the taps and video surveillance that cooked those fucks who killed his family?"

"Yeah."

"Did you know I rigged the explosion?"

Green's eyes widened. "No. Jesus. So, you're doing penance?"

Cahill snorted, took a drag on his cigarette and blew it out, "In a manner of speaking. I've finally found someone I can believe in, someone who isn't as jaded as the rest of us poor rat bastards. Rather than burn out and suicide, working for him has kind of redeemed me. Sounds weird, I know."

Green was just finishing buttoning her blouse, "No. I completely understand."

"And your motives? Do you really love him? Or do you just love the power?"

Green looked down and hesitated before she answered. "At first it was the power. He had a certain innocence and he needed me. But he's gotten wiser and I do love him. When I'm with him I don't have to worry about anything. I don't worry about motives or schemes or anything. I can just abandon myself with him."

"Interesting. Well, as much as I'd like to sit and chat, we need to see if we can find anything on her control. This smells like both you and her are being set up for the assassination. You know, a lover's triangle gone horribly awry or some sort of shit like that."

"Yeah. I was beginning to get that vibe. She's got her portable terminal over here."

The two went over to Lang's computer terminal. Cahill sat down at the data entry control.

"Email. Show last 10 days."

"Acknowledged." The terminal responded in the synthesized voice of Winston Miles.

"Oh that is fucking bizarre," Green commented.

"Type," Cahill commanded the terminal.

"All emails encrypted."

"Specify encryption algorithm."

"This information is password protected."

Green immediately started looking around for a password. Cahill crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back in his chair.

"Tea Party 9875 Rabbit Hole"

"Password accepted. Encryption algorithm is DH 927, Variant C."

"Jesus H. Christ!" Green startled at Cahill's exclamation.

"What?"

"Encryption algorithm DH 927, Variant C is used exclusively by the National Security Council.

"Decrypt all. Password Tomahawk d2946 February."

"Access denied."

Cahill seemed nonplussed and simply sat, rubbing his chin.

"Cahill, what the hell are you doing? No matter whose encryption this is there's still going to be a unique pass phrase. We will never be able to decrypt it in time."

Cahill smiled, a gleam in his eyes, "Wait. Decrypt all. Password Boom Boom Boom."

"Access granted."

Green was amazed as the first email opened. "How...?"

"Somebody has to watch the watchers. There's several backdoors into NSC encryption. Most upper level managers and controllers know the first backdoor, the Tomahawk password, and they change it. Almost no one knows there are two more.

"Now, what's this?"

They both leaned toward the monitor and read the first email. It was less than 48 hours old.

"Package must be delivered Saturday night. Report on delivery."

"The 'package' must be the President," Green said, still scanning the email.

Cahill swore softly and rubbed his face with his hands.

"What?"

"It's signed the Red Queen."

"Do you know the Red Queen, Mitchell?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I do."

"Well?"

"I need to talk to the President."

~~~~~~~~~~

"Mr. President," Dr. Anabeth Nichols, National Security Advisor, was clearly surprised to see the President in her office.

"Working late, Anabeth?"

"Uh, yes. Just trying to catch up on paperwork.

"I'm surprised to see you this late on a Saturday. I thought you'd be over at Blair House."

"Mmmm. I have some business to take care of before I head over tonight. Mind if I sit down? I'd like to have a little chat with you."

"Please."

The President sat down in one of the desk chairs. "So, Anabeth, what do you know about the 5412 Working Group and Annette Masterson?"

Without missing a beat Nichols said, "I know Annette Masterson by reputation but I've never heard of the 5412 Working Group. Why?"

"That's your story and you're sticking to it?"

"Yes," she replied in a slightly indignant tone.

The President shrugged and opened his cigarette case, "It's just curious to me that allegedly the best National Security Advisor since Henry Kissinger, Condoleeza Rice and Paul Hutchinson can not quote me intimate details about a global industrialist and a secret organization that has a direct impact on the national security interests of the U.S. Unless, of course, it's not that you don't know it's just that you can't tell me.

"And it's also curious that for only knowing Annette Masterson "by reputation" that you spent 6 weeks last summer with her in Papaette. The pictures are very arousing. Your elegant body, your hair and skin tone goes very nicely between Mrs. Masterson's thighs. Masterson has some interesting sexual proclivities.

"And your secret numbered Havana accounts show regular and large deposits from All Seas Trading Group, Ltd., the name of the front company for the 5412 Working Group.

"So, you still want to stick with that story?"

Nichols swallowed hard. The President lit a cigarette.

"And, by the way," the President closed his lighter, "interesting code name you have, the Red Queen."

Nichols looked at her desk and slowly shuffled some papers. She didn't look up. She spoke slowly, "What do you want me to say?"

"Well," the President blew a cloud of smoke into the air, "at the risk of being cliched, the truth would be refreshing."

"They'll kill me."

"Again, at the risk of being cliched, your immediate worry is what I'll do to you, not them."

"Okay," she looked slowly at the President, "what do you want to know?"

The President smiled cruelly. "I already know you were only the messenger, the device to move along the assassination of my family. That was Masterson and the 5412 boys. I'm guessing you didn't figure Cahill would develop a conscience and it wasn't in the game plan to have me effectively neutralize the conspirators. Masterson, I'm guessing, probably wanted leverage against Carstairs and Miles.

"What I haven't been able to figure out is why you - not Masterson and the boys - wanted to kill me - tonight."

Nichols looked back down at her desk and idly played with her pen. "Yeah, Cahill was quite the surprise, as was your response. Hell, Annette and 'the boys,' as you call them, were stunned you were elected. You," she looked straight at the President, coolly, calmly, "well, I wanted to kill you simply because I could."

"Is that it? Because you could?" Montrose asked equally calmly.

"Well, I didn't think we could leverage you. I knew that the Vice President would be easy to leverage. With you out of the way, 5412 has someone they can control and my stock in the group rises accordingly. I even thought your assassination might get me a seat on the executive action committee."

"Makes sense. But what made you think Cynthia would do me?"

"I thought I could seduce her and as my lover, she would kill for her mistress. I was making some progress. Her and I hooked up several times after the election. But I got sloppy, didn't do my homework. I didn't realize she had worked for Mossad; that she was a switch and not a true sub or that she was falling in love with you.

"When did you find out about her romantic feelings?"

"Our last hook up she asked me while we were cuddling if I would like to join you and her in a long term threesome. I knew right then you had her heart - I didn't know for a while whether the feelings were mutual.

"Anyway, I had to adjust my plans. I have a team ready to pay you two a late night call."

"Gutsy, Anabeth."

"Thanks. You and Cynthia will be found dead in bed and Marilyn Lang, the jealous, insane, spurned woman, in a kinky love triangle will be found dead at the safe house.

"If the veneer of the love triangle doesn't hold up then the fallback is the espionage angle and that will occupy the public for quite sometime, not to mention tearing the hell out of diplomatic relations with Tel Aviv."

"I'm impressed. But you need to quit talking in the future tense about my demise. Marilyn Lang is enjoying some intensive psychotherapy at my seaside villa at Cabo San Lucas. And Cynthia boarded a military transport at Andrews last night headed for Malaga. Annette Masterson is vacationing on the Costa del Sol. Cynthia should be seeing her soon."

The President looked at his watch. "And, I should be getting a call anytime now telling me your team is neutralized. You know Lt. Col. Phillip McKenzie, USMC and his Force Recon Team Charlie, I believe."

"My turn to be impressed, Peter. I didn't know you had a villa in Cabo."

"Just bought it." The President tossed a data key on Nichols' desk. She picked it up and gasped as she read it.

"Quite a bank account you had in Havana. I also picked up a nice little ranch near Santiago and a small hotel in Havana."

The President stood and placed seven other data keys on Nichols' desk.

"The first three are Masterson's personal secret accounts, the next two you should recognize as 5412 operating accounts and the last two are your other accounts in Havana."

Nichols held them all in her hand, her eyes wide.

"That's about nine and a half billion, give or take. I can build a helluva presidential library and still have change."

The President walked around her desk. He stood beside her chair. As she looked up at him he took her chin gently in his hand and tilted her head back. He kissed her slowly, deeply, intimately. She reciprocated, enjoying the President's boldness.

When he broke the kiss she slumped back in her chair, still looking up at him, smiling.

"Stand up," he commanded. She complied.

"Betrayal, like a deep kiss, is very intimate, very personal. Wouldn't you agree doctor?"

"Yes," it was barely a whisper. Her cool veneer was beginning to crack. Her eyes scanned the President's face for a clue as to what would happen next.

The President smiled at her then placed his hands along the neckline of Dr. Nichols' lavender silk blouse and violently ripped downward, sending pearl buttons flying across the room. She stifled a surprised scream.

"You know why I'm doing this, Anabeth?"

She looked at him, stunned. "No."

"Because I can. How's that make you feel?"

Nichols quickly found her cool again. She pressed her body into his, teasingly, seductively. "If I thought you'd carry through I'd feel violated. But you're too principled. You won't..."

Violently the President broke the front clasp of her bra and roughly ran his hands over her A-cup size breasts. He was thumbing the nipples, rubbing them with varying degrees of pressure between his thumbs and index fingers watching them stiffen. "Too principled, eh? What makes you think that?"

She smiled and hummed her pleasure, "Hmmm, pull my nipples harder, Mr. President. I like it that way," she drew in a deep breath as he pulled harder. "Anyway...oh, God, that's nice...With what you had on Carstairs and company you could have killed them. Instead you - and this really blows my mind - chose to show them mercy. You won't kill me or rape me but whatever your plan, I think I'm enjoying it. Cynthia said you were good in bed."

The President laughed quietly, turning his attention to the belt of her silk suit pants. "Hmmmm. Your intel wasn't as complete as I thought. You think it was just an actuarial coincidence that the Director of the FBI, two deputy directors and the CIA's Deputy Director for Covert Operations all met with heart attacks, car accidents or freak accidents all within 12 weeks of each other?"

The President unbuckled her belt and opened the clasp to her pants. He ran his hand across the flat of her belly as her pants slid off her hips and formed a silken puddle around her shoes. He was admiring the lace of her panties and the curve of her hips so he didn't notice the sudden look of concern on her face.

He took her face in his hands and kissed her deeply again. This time she resisted but he forced his tongue past her lips and then sucked her tongue out. She moaned, smiled slightly against his mouth as he took her mouth. Yes, she was enjoying this, she thought - until she felt the pinprick in her neck.

She jerked from the President's embrace and starred at him. He was smiling. He held up his palm to show her the tiny needle between his fingers.

Her fingertips went to her throat where he had pricked her and she fell back against her desk, sitting on the edge still starring at the President. Presently her body began to jerk and she fell backwards onto her desk, her body convulsing. Her eyes were wide in terror.

"The seizures will be over in a minute Anabeth. Try to relax. It'll go easier," he said.

Soon her body was still, completely limp. Her eyes were still open, the terror replaced by a glassy dullness. She tried to speak, found she could and whispered, Wha...what'd you do to me?"

"Just a little harmless neurotoxin, at least in the dose I gave you." He reached down and pulled her pants from around her ankles and then effortlessly spread her thighs and stood back to admire the sight.

"You'll fall asleep in a bit. I'm told you'll wake with a hell of a headache. Sorry about that. But before that...," he let his intentions hang in the air.

"I wish I had a picture of this. You're very beautiful this way. But I had the surveillance system turned off - even your own private, secondary system."

The President drew a small, curved, double-edged knife from his belt. "As much as I admire your lingerie, I think you'll look better without your panties." He slid the flat of the blade across the inside of her thigh, over the silk covering her sex and then down the inside of her other thigh.

Despite herself the caress of the blade felt good. She moaned quietly and felt her sex get heavier and wetter. Slowly she felt the blade slide inside the leg band and then heard the slow cutting of the fabric. She felt air on her mons and then Montrose's fingertips caressing her.

"Your slickness betrays you Anabeth."

"You won't. Principles, remember?" she managed to husk back.

He stood back again and looked at her. The tall, slender, elegant blonde was stretched over her desk on her back. She wore a pearl choker necklace. Her lavender blouse and her bra were torn open and framing her breasts and upper belly, her long, lean legs spread, and her feet dangling above the floor.

"Maybe," the President half whispered.

She felt her eyes become heavy and her conscious begin to ebb.

Oh God, NO! her mind screamed. She wanted to stay conscious, to have some control.

Suddenly the President was between her thighs. Slowly, almost idly, he pulled her blouse off her shoulders, moved a wisp of hair from her eyes and straightened her pearls.

His cock slid slowly up between her swollen sex lips and onto the flat of her belly. His hands were on her breasts, nipples in his fingers. She moaned involuntarily.

"Anabeth, can you hear me?"

She struggled to focus on her face. He bent his head and sucked a nipple then looked her in the face again.

"Ye...yes, I can hear you."

"When you wake up you will get dressed in what clothes are still in your office and come directly to Blair House. Your life may depend on it. Do you understand?"

"Yes." She felt his lips on her throat and struggled against the toxin to arch throat and back for him. His cock slid back and nestled between her lips just starting to penetrate her.

Her fear and anger melted away and she thought, Yeah, that's it Peter take me, fuck me and then I'll have you, you prick. She moaned again as she felt him enter her and then there was blackness.

~~~~~~~~~~

Nichols awoke with a blinding headache, still on her back on her desk. Slowly she struggled to sit up. She was completely nude except for her necklace and her Italian shoes.

Her thighs were sticky slick from his cum in varying degrees of dryness and she noticed dried sperm in the tuft of her sex hair. There was a bitter taste in her mouth.

She gingerly got off her desk and fell into her chair, her face in her hands. "Fucking Bastard! She hoarsely whispered to herself. Sentimental fool. I'll use him and then kill him when I don't need him any longer, she thought.

She started to look around for her clothes and then she yelped in surprise, an arm going over her breasts for cover.

"Evening, ma'am. Lt. Col. McKenzie, Force Recon Team Charlie. I believe you know my top boss, Chief of Naval Operations Richard Harper."

"Good evening Dr. Nichols. The President asked that we see you over to Blair House."

If looks could indeed kill, the men, sitting in the sitting area of her office, drinks in their hands, would be dead. Nichols squinted murderously at them.

She brushed her hair back from her face, her tone was calm and measured at first, almost subdued, "Would you gentlemen," then she unleashed the fury that was building inside her, "get the FUCK out of my office!"

Admiral Harper stood up slowly, "I'm very sorry, Anabeth," his tone almost fatherly, "I know the entire story from Carstairs and Miles to right now.

"You will accompany Col. McKenzie and me to Blair House as soon as you are dressed. If you resist or make a scene in anyway Col. McKenzie will put a bullet in your head - no matter where we happen to be standing.

"And believe me Anabeth, I didn't spend 15 years in the CIA as a case officer and not learn how to cover up a cold blooded murder in public.

"The President is offering you a chance. Death is only an option if you force his hand - though knowing what I know now, I have to tell you, despite our long friendship and my respect for your work, you're someone I'd kill in a heartbeat. I have no idea why he is keeping you alive but I never question my commander's orders."

Nichols was stunned speechless. She starred at the two men who appeared so casual and relaxed. This was a nightmare! Just some twisted nightmare!

"Anabeth, please get dressed."

The Admiral's voice shocked her out of her stupor, "Richard...Richard, I have money! I have enough to pay off Col. McKenzie's entire team! I can make you all rich men. Help me! Please!"

"Anabeth, no, you don't have money. The President seized it all, including your emergency cache in Cartagena. He's got over half the accounts of the 5412 Group and almost all of Masterson's accounts. Now please..."

She starred for a moment longer then slowly started to get out of her chair.

In a quiet voice she asked, "Would you mind waiting outside, please?"

The Admiral stood transfixed and Lt. Col. McKenzie simply starred at her. "I'm sorry Anabeth. We're not to leave you alone until we present you to the President."

"But Richard, I have to pee," she pleaded.

Lt. Col. McKenzie pulled the slide back on his pistol, chambering a round, and Anabeth startled. The Admiral frowned at the sound of McKenzie's pistol and made a motion with his hand to the Colonel to lower his weapon. "Anabeth. Please. I don't want this to get out of hand."

She starred between them, eyes wide, for what seemed like an eternity to her and then awkwardly got up and reached for her blouse and pants on the floor near her desk. She quickly turned her back on the men and pulled on the clothes.