Damien's Christmas Read online

  “Cultural. In DC.”

  Damien could only offer her a shrug. Madani offered no reaction at all.

  Cornelia decided her best option was to wait, especially as she didn’t know how to take the next step.

  “When we are teaching our young the prayers of a true believer, we often tell them: you must pray with your heart, not your words.”

  “You are saying I should take up prayer from my heart?”

  Madani smiled tolerantly. “I can think of little better advice, but that was not my point.”

  “This…person,” Pejman spoke with disgust, “spoke his final words as a child. Repeating them until they were past any meaning. He said: We shall cut out their heart with their own words.” They were the first words Pejman had spoken since making introductions. He had seemed but a passive go-between until this moment. But his evident fury and what sounded like personal experience made him into a suddenly menacing and dangerous man who had overseen the questioning and confession of a man now dead.

  “My apologies for my son-in-law. He is a very passionate man.” And with those words, President Madani dropped his napkin on his plate and rose to his feet.

  “You have no more for us?” Cornelia cursed herself the moment she’d said it. If he did, he’d have offered it already.

  “I can only offer you my prayers during this, your Christian holiday season.” Madani pressed his palms together briefly and then, after only a moment’s hesitation, reached across to shake her hand.

  His clasp was firm but brief.

  “You are the first woman I have touched other than my wife and daughter since the day of my wedding.”

  “I will take that as a blessing.”

  “Take it as a statement that if your most-trusted advisor does not have the common sense that Allah gave an elephant, I shall speak to my wife about my taking a second one.”

  When he shook Damien’s hand, without the hesitation, Damien spoke cheerfully as if to a friend. “Don’t lose your food tickets.”

  “It is not my first trip to Katz’s,” the President laughed.

  Damien retained the President’s hand a moment longer, “And I do have more common sense than God gave a horse.”

  “Good. Then I shall call you friend and you shall bring your wife to meet mine when you come to visit us.” He turned for the door and his guards fell into place beside him.

  Pejman did not presume to shake her hand, but did shake Damien’s.

  “My thanks, Ms. Day.” She felt that he managed his exit line without choking on it too badly.

  “Pending doom. This is really not how I was thinking this Saturday was going to turn out,” she wanted to collapse at the table and fake something. Like a belief that everything was going to be okay.

  Damien held out her coat. “So, that was fun. Who are we meeting with next? The Chinese Paramount Leader at Barney’s for bagels and lox about a war in the South China Sea? Then uptown to Zabar’s for gefilte fish with the Russian Prime Minister to find out how soon his submarines are going to attack the East Coast? Seriously I need to hang out with you more often. I can’t wait until we meet the real Santa Claus.”

  “You’re Jewish,” though she appreciated his attempts at levity.

  “Technically,” he gathered her to-go sandwich for the President, offered her his arm, and escorted her toward the door.

  An elderly couple pounced on their table before they were two steps away.

  “But I still have more common sense than God gave a horse, no matter which God he is.”

  “Or she.”

  “Or she,” he agreed as he paid for their two tickets.

  Cornelia had lost all ability to think. Definitely to think about President Madani’s departing benediction.

  But his indefinite hints at terrorist attacks was scaring the daylights out of her.

  Chapter Seven

  “And that’s all he said?”

  Damien could only nod. He didn’t dare look at the Sit Room clock. Who knew how many hours they’d been here. He’d intentionally sat with his back to the big digital displays that showed local and President time. They’d be in sync right now because the President was sitting at the head of the table, but Damien didn’t want to know.

  He’d never so appreciated his anonymous role at the duty watch officer’s desk. Or so wanted to get back to it.

  For the entire flight home in the back of the helicopter, they’d written down every word they could remember. After checking with him on a scribbled note, Cornelia had used General Arnson as a sounding board to force them to remember as much as possible. Then all three of them had been whisked into the Situation Room. An ever-changing array of senior staff had arrived, questioned, departed, returned…

  Someone served them a late dinner he couldn’t recall, but the whirlwind didn’t slow—it grew. The President, the Misters Elect, the NSA, General Brett Rogers—Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and too many others for him to keep track of were called in until there wasn’t an empty seat and there were plenty more standing: Homeland Security, counter-terrorism, Secret Service…

  A cultural attack.

  Perhaps during your Christian holiday season.

  We shall cut out their heart with their own words.

  Though it was Saturday afternoon, substitute copies of the Declaration and Constitution had been put on display and the originals placed in the main vault at the National Archives. That President Madani had opened his conversation with the first line of the Declaration had been too much for even the skeptics to dismiss.

  Beyond that, it was generally agreed that unless President Madani could offer them some further details at a later time, there was little that could be surmised or done.

  Still they had talked.

  And talked.

  And talked.

  He and Cornelia had been asked questions until they were wrung dry—every word, every nuance questioned and re-questioned. Even Cornelia’s perfect posture was finally sagging.

  That’s what finally kicked him into action. That fact that Cornelia was less than her incredible self was so wrong that it dragged him from his own pending stupefaction.

  “We’re done,” his voice came out as little more than a croak.

  When no one paid any attention to him, he rose to his feet, and managed to find a little more volume.

  “We’re done.”

  Still no effect.

  So he took Cornelia’s hand in his and helped her to her feet. He could feel her shaking. Over everyone’s sudden protests, he simply led her from the room.

  Damien forgot to look away from the wall clock as he passed by it: oh-seven-hundred.

  Twenty-four hours. They’d been on the go for twenty-four straight hours, twelve of them in this goddamn room.

  Leading her by the hand, they passed by the watch desk.

  Marko’s low whistle of surprise was the only sound from his team, who were getting a start-of-shift briefing from the prior team. He glanced over at them.

  Felice and Vaccaro both gave him a thumbs-up, and Caron whispered softly, “Bugger me! The Chief of Staff? Good on ya, mate.”

  Cornelia was stumbling worse than a drunk as he led her out into the White House foyer. The dawn was still lost somewhere behind freshly dark clouds.

  “I have a car and driver waiting for you,” the head of the President’s Secret Service detail, Frank Adams, loomed up beside him. He handed them their coats. Damien had forgotten to grab them, which told him how poorly he was functioning.

  “You’re the best, Frank.”

  “No, that’s my wife. But thanks for saying it. You take care of this lady.”

  “Already on it.”

  “I see that,” he glanced down at their joined hands.

  “Go to hell, Frank.”

  “Bound to, Damien. Good night, Ms. Day,” he saw them all the way to the car and personally closed the door behind them.

  She was asleep on Damien’s shoulder by the time they rea
ched her condo.

  The morning doorman, who’d given him nothing but the evil eye at this time yesterday morning, rushed to hold the door as he carried her in. She curled up in his arms like a lover. Her head on his shoulder, her arms draped about his neck. She weighed nothing, as if her exhaustion was so deep that all substance had been dragged from her.

  There was enough light through her east-facing windows, despite the glowering sky, that Damien could navigate her apartment. He lay her down atop the rose-colored comforter on the bed, he pulled off her boots, then sat down in a floral armchair for a moment to gather the energy to take off her coat and tuck her in.

  It was the last thing he remembered.

  Chapter Eight

  Cold.

  Cornelia reached for the blanket. She wasn’t under one.

  Still cold.

  She was lying down in her coat, on her bed. The pillow smelled of…

  Damien! Where was—

  She opened her eyes to the room, and had to squint. The heavy overcast still let too much light in the two tall windows that faced the park across the street. Once she grew accustomed to the brightness, she spotted him. He too still wore his coat, slouched in the chair by her dresser. Through the uncurtained windows, the day looked icy cold against the dark gray sky—sleeting rain slapped against the glass in hard gusts.

  Damien slept as if he’d been cut down in place. His arms hanging off either side of the chair, his head tipped sideways as if some headsman had done only a mediocre job of chopping him off at the neck.

  He didn’t look much like a conquering hero, but he was. She remembered how strong and steady he’d been through the endless debriefing. She’d never have made it as long as she did without his constant encouragement.

  And then he’d rescued her.

  It was a moment that maidens in distress were supposed to recall and didn’t know whether she was happy or sad that she mostly didn’t. She’d never been so tired in her life. Then his hand had lifted her from her seat and she’d been whisked away in some fairy carriage that had felt like being held in his arms. And had woken up—

  Cold.

  Cornelia managed to regain her feet and stumbled over her leather Blondo mid-calf boots she’d chosen yesterday. They’d have been more useful if they were still on her feet. Pulling her coat more tightly about her didn’t decrease the chill, neither did rubbing her feet together—two chafing icicles, not body warmth. She moved around the room, dropping the curtains into place, shutting out the too bright morning. She didn’t know what time she gotten into, or at least onto her bed, but it hadn’t been long enough ago.

  When she passed by Damien, she jostled his arm.

  “Huh?” No more than an incoherent grunt. Then a groan as he tried to straighten out his neck.

  She jostled him again, “Into the bed, now.”

  He looked up at her, over at the bed, down at himself—at least he still wore his boots—then back up at her. “Huh?”

  Cornelia decided that he was awake enough to figure out the next steps for himself. She shed her coat, and clothes over the other armchair and felt terribly bohemian for not hanging them up. Slipping on a flannel nightgown, she then crawled back under the covers and pulled them over her head.

  She could hear Damien stumble to his feet. After a few miscellaneous and manly grunts, he slid naked beneath the covers. Is this what it would be like to live with a man? She’d never done that, never shared her living space except for a night here and there. Which was all she’d done with Damien. So why was she suddenly thinking what it would be like to live with the man?

  He slipped a hand out in the darkness, found her breast, whispered a “sorry,” then slid his hand about her waist and pulled her in as if she weighed nothing.

  One thing for sure, living with a man was a much warmer option. Ignoring propriety, she plastered herself against him: her twined arms and hands trapped between them, her legs slipping between his, her face burrowed against his shoulder.

  “Well, good morning,” she liked the deep rumble of his chest and pushed harder against it. How could a person be so deliciously warm? Would that be a problem in the hot summer? No, she had air conditioning. It would still be incredible.

  “Go back to sleep. We need sleep,” Cornelia could feel it dragging at her very bones.

  “Fat chance,” he pulled her in tighter until he was practically crushing her against him.

  “So warm,” her fingers must feel like ice against his warm chest, but he didn’t complain.

  “Is that all I am to you? A life-sized heating unit?”

  “Absolutely.”

  He shifted to slide his other arm beneath her head and his powerful biceps became her pillow.

  “Very warm. Very nice.” And so male that she wondered what that made her prior lovers. Technically male, but they had been political and office types. Damien might work as a librarian in the Situation Room, but Marine radiated off him.

  He kissed her on top of the head and she did her best not to purr.

  She huddled inside his embrace and soaked up the warmth and the wonder of his embrace. The wonder of it, that was the biggest surprise. Damien didn’t hold or hug her, he embraced her. He held her the same way he looked at her, as if she was more important than anything.

  The sensation stilled her thoughts and quieted her soul until she was aware of only two things: Damien’s warmth and his luscious smell.

  “How in the world can you fall asleep like this?” Damien kept his question silent so that he didn’t wake Cornelia.

  Her flannel nightgown hid nothing, wrapping her in a second, almost plush skin. From her freezing toes pressed tight atop his own to her soft hair tucked under his chin, there wasn’t a single point not in contact.

  She was asleep.

  His body was vibrant with need. He ached to touch, taste, feel, enter.

  And she was asleep.

  A power ran through him, the like of which he’d rarely felt since his six months in the Marine Corps officer training at The Basic School at Quantico. It was the course that made four years of NROTC and the three summers between look like a lazy-assed cakewalk. For six months he’d done everything from rifle platoon tactics and crew-served weapons—the Marines loved their howitzers and missile launchers—to signals intelligence and ground electronic warfare.

  At the end of The Basic School you either became an officer or you became an officer—Marines never quit. But that didn’t mean it was easy or that all graduates were created equal. Screw up and you didn’t get a choice on where you landed—infantry command here I come. Graduate at the top, talk nice to the intelligence instructors, do a tour at Marine Intel, and get recommended straight into National Security Council.

  He done it right: every single goddamn step of it for four years of school, a half more at Quantico, and every training course since.

  The toughest instructor of them all had been the NSC’s prior senior watch officer. Damien’s first two-year tour at the watch desk had been pure hell and Laslow had made sure of it. Every lousy, impossible, bound-to-come-apart-at-exactly-the-wrong-moment job had somehow landed on his desk. He knew Laslow was behind it, but Damien had survived enough Marine Corps instructors that an asshole Defense Intelligence Agency liaison wasn’t going to get to him.

  Then, when his tour was up, he was reassigned to the Sit Room—which never happened. After two more years of Laslow hell, the man had taken him aside.

  “You’re it, Feinman. You’re in again, but I’m out. You disappoint me and I’m going to come back from the grave to haunt you.”

  “You planning on dying?” The man had been at least seventy even back then—and sharp as hell.

  “Wife’s got family in Louisiana. I hate Louisiana. Dying will be a goddamn blessing.”

  Last Damien had heard, he was playing in the winning money of senior golf tournaments.

  Damien had taken over, providing continuity to the NSC watch team for three more tours since. Any Marine
up on the line who said Damien hadn’t earned his captain’s bars could go suck on a hot howitzer barrel. Once he’d made it, Damien had known just how strong he was.

  Or thought he had.

  All that had been blown away by the strength he felt holding onto the woman in his arms.

  Cornelia wasn’t weak, not a single ounce of her. But still he felt truly strong in this moment, protecting her from the world.

  Focus on the moment! Laslow had yelled at him. Damien was always thinking about future strategy and possibilities. How to better advise the very top policy makers.

  It was a variation of the tirade that Cornelia had unleashed on his Marine Intel buddies. His thinking didn’t need to remain tactical, as theirs did. Instead, it needed to be focused on what was needed at the moment…and to anticipate the next. He like to think of it as: the Feinman corollary to the Laslow initiative.

  That’s what Damien had striven to teach the teams since he’d taken over as the leader of the duty watch. To serve the room in the very best way, it was always necessary to think about the next moment. To anticipate it. To have the information ready before they asked for it.

  Sometimes the effort was wasted, when the question never came or conversation veered in another direction. But it had forced the watch team to bring a new level to their game.

  And what Cornelia needed right now was sleep.

  He knew that.

  No matter what he needed. She—

  “How much longer are you going to lie there thinking so hard?” Her voice whispered against his chest.

  “You’re asleep.” He’d known she was asleep. She still wasn’t moving a single muscle.

  “Uh-huh. Clearly. And if you try to hold me any harder, our bodies will merge and become one.”

  “Oh, sorry,” but he couldn’t bring himself to ease off. All of his protective thoughts were still keeping her clasped tightly against him. “Letting you go doesn’t appear to be an option.”

  “Good. Don’t.”