Graham Humbert looked up from his seat at the main monitoring station as the door to Command Central opened at 0625. He tried to suppress a grin but failed as he recognized the tall, trim, dark haired woman who strode purposefully toward him. He stood and extended his hand with a smile. "Welcome back, Commander."
Smiling warmly, United States Secret Service Agent Regina Mills shook the hand of the boyishly handsome agent. "It's good to be back, Graham." Despite the personal difficulties sure to come, she realized just how much she meant it.
She looked around the large open room that occupied the eighth floor of a brownstone apartment building overlooking Boro Grove in Manhattan. It had been almost six months since she'd been in charge of the Secret Service security detail that worked out of this space, and she had not expected to return, at least, not in any official capacity.
Heading this unit was not something she had not welcomed originally. She had spent most of her career in the investigation division of the Secret Service, tracking counterfeit funds used in illegal drug transactions. Working with members of the DEA, ATF, and Treasury Department in the field, she had considered the protective branch of the Secret Service to be a place for rookies and desk jockeys. Guarding diplomats, foreign visitors, and members of political families did not interest her.
Until now. Now, it mattered a great deal.
"Is Cobra back on the ground yet? Regina asked. She shrugged her shoulders, trying to work out the stiffness from her midnight flight. She'd been in Miami on a new assignment, pursuing a trail of treasury forgeries that the agency hoped would lead to a network of cocaine importers, when the call had come reassigning her.
This change in her orders was completely unexpected, and the fact that she had been instructed to report to New York City immediately, with no explanation and briefing in DC, bothered her. No one had suggested that there was potential trouble on this end, but then that didn't mean anything. The federal government depended upon multiple security agencies with overlapping spheres of interest and influence, and there were never ending turf struggles. Even those with a need to know often didn't get critical information until it as too late to be useful. She'd had personal experience with that more than once. And once, it had nearly destroyed her.
"Long flight?" Graham couldn't help but notice the strain in her expression.
"The usual." Shaking off the cloud of fatigue, she dispelled the memories along with it. She wouldn't let that kind of screw up happen here, not with something—someone—so important at stake. She would find out who, or what, was behind her transfer.
But first things first. She had work to do before her initial meeting with the woman she was charged to protect. A woman who, under the best of circumstances, was an unwilling participant in her own protection, and one who was certain to be even more resistant now.
Regina refocused on Graham. "I'll need to be briefed before I meet with her. I've been on the air most of the night and haven't been informed of her location."
"She's back in the nest." Graham said, pointing towards the ceiling and the penthouse apartment above them that comprised the top floor of the building. "They returned from China late last night. But Cobra didn't want to remain in Washington. They came up by car about 0300. That wasn't the plan."
"I guess some things never change." Regina smiled to herself. She always has to remind everyone who's really in charge of her life.
Graham shook his head, but he wasn't smiling. He regarded his chief seriously for a moment and tried not to think about how close she had come to dying only months before. She looked fit and healthy now, but he knew that she had only been back on active duty for six weeks. As usual when on duty, she wore an amazing tailored, understatedly expensive suit and appeared capable, competent, and cool, all the things he knew she was. He also knew from experience that it was hard to tell very much beyond that just by looking at her. She rarely revealed what she was feeling, but could always be counted on to say exactly what she was thinking.
"The team will be very happy to have you back." He said.
"What about you, Graham?" She leaned one hip against the edge of the desk, her dark brown eyed studying his. "I'm bumping you out of the commander's seat."
"You mean out of the hot seat?" He laughed, shook his head, and leaned back in the swivel chair, gesturing with one hand to the array of computer monitors, audiovisual equipment, and satellite feeds from the NYPD and New York Transit Authority on the long counter in front of him. "I'm an information man. This is what I want to be doing, and these last few months of doing your job proved it to me."
"Good." Regina said quickly. "I'm glad you're okay with it, because no one is more important than the communications coordinator, and I need the best."
"Thanks." Graham felt good about her confidence in him. "You're doing me a big favor, Commander. I'm no good at VIP stuff, and with this kind of detail, that's key."
Regina didn't need him to tell her that knowing how to handle high profile personalities was a requirement of the work. It was one of the reasons she was good at this particular assignment, and it was also the reason her next task was going to be so difficult. Emma Swan, code name Cobra, had had Regina removed once as head of her security detail, and she was going to be very displeased to find she had returned.
She has every right to be angry. This reassignment changes everything. Jesus, how am I going to explain this to her?
Six weeks ago, they had spent five nights in one another's arms. If she had known then that she would be back heading Emma's security detail, she might have made a different choice. Yeah, right.
Emma's face briefly flickered into her mind, and the instant surge of heat that accompanied the image told her she was kidding herself. She had wanted her then, badly. Had wanted her for months, too much for procedure or protocol to have stopped her. She wasn't sure what she was going to do about those feelings now that circumstances had changed, but the one thing she did know was that she had a job to do.
Regina stood suddenly. "I'll see everyone at 0700 in the conference room. Bring what you have in your itinerary for the week, projected out of town events for the near future, all pertinent problematic field reports from the time I was gone, and anything else that you think needs my attention. I need to be up to speed by the time I meet with her this morning."
Graham nodded, then watched Regina walk toward the small glass enclosed cubicle in one corner that served as their conference center. He saw her looking casually left and right toward the center of the room where several work areas were separated by low dividers. He knew that she was assessing the monitoring equipment that the men and woman assigned to her command utilized twenty-four hours a day to observe and protect the only child of the president of the United States.
At precisely 0700, Regina walked into the conference room carrying her second cup of coffee. She set it down at the end of the rectangular table and looked over the faces turned towards her. They were all familiar. No one had transferred out during her absence, and that pleased her because all of them were confirmed good agents. She had seen to that when she took command almost a year before, demanding that anyone not one hundred percent committed to the task of guarding the president's daughter transfer out. Those who had chosen to stay had proven themselves under fire.
"Well," she began, allowing a faint grin to pull at one corner of her mouth. "At least I won't have to learn any new names. And we can skip all the introductory bull and get down to business." She looked down the room to where Graham sat with a pile of papers in front of him. "Graham?"
"Nothing new planned on the foreign front until the trip to Paris with the vice president and his wife next month."
"Right." Regina settled into her chair with her PDA. "We'll need the routine advance information on motorcade routes, local hospitals, and transit lines for each day's events. That should all be in the database. I assume they'll be staying at the usual hotel. That needs to be confirmed."
She turned to the to the intellectual looking individual woman on her left, who happened to be fluent in nine languages with a working command of seven others. "Are you still doing the advance work on the foreign travel, Carter?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Good. Then you can contact the secretary at the Protocol Department in Paris to review the scheduled functions, charity dinners, museums outings, whatever they have planned. I want guest lists for any pre-announced gatherings and seating placements for theatre and dinner engagements." The French were notorious for changing itineraries last minute, and Paris was an international city where terrorism was a very real threat. "Keep after them. Make sure we're current by the time we're in the air. I don't want to be surprised."
"Got it."
"Stern." She looked at the woman two seats to her left.
"Ma'am?"
"Check with your buddies in intelligence and make sure we have the latest of any activity in France, particularly active cells in Paris. I want photos and bios distributed to tall team members before we depart. Graham will schedule pre-flight briefing sometime the week before we leave."
Joy Carter and Katherine Stern nodded and made notes while Regina signaled Graham to continue. He shuffled some printouts and said, "Domestically, there is an opening at the Rodman gallery in San Francisco in three weeks."
"Where's she staying?" Regina asked absently, her mind still on the Paris details. International travel placed any recognizable political figure at risk, and when that individual represented a country as widely hated as the USA, the risk escalated.
"We don't know yet." Graham sounded uncomfortable.
Regina looked up, narrowing her eyes. "You don't know? She must have reservations by now. Who's handling her itinerary."
Graham blushed but kept his eyes on hers. He had forgotten how unforgivable she could be about any breach in protocol. He prepared himself to be dressed down. "She is, Commander."
"She is." Regina repeated in disgust. She knew damn well it wasn't Graham's fault. Struggling with her temper, she closed her electronic notebook and stood. "Is there anything pressing that the team needs to discuss this morning, Graham?"
"No, ma'am."
"Who's heading the day shift?" She looked over the team.
"I am, ma'am." The answer came from a smooth featured, dark haired woman in her late twenties. She might have been any one of the earnest athletic, all-American types so often associated with government agents except for the surprising intensity in her voice.
"Fine." Regina acknowledged with a quick nod. After one nearly career-ending lapse in judgement, Ruby Lucas had proven herself to be cool and levelheaded. She was an invaluable asset as a member of the shift that spent the most time in direct contact with the first daughter. "Ten go get your detail organized."
"Yes, ma'am." Ruby replied, getting to her feet.
"Graham," Regina asked crisply, "if I might speak with you, please."
Chairs scraped as agents hastened to get out of the conference room. They's all seen Regina take people apart if she felt they had been sloppy in protecting the first daughter, no matter how difficult Emma Swan might make the job.
When they were alone, Regina looked at Graham and raised an eyebrow. "Okay. You want to tell me what the hell is going on? First, I get called back with no explanation and no notice. Then you say that Cobra is bypassing normal security protocols. What else is happening that I don't know about? I can't work in the dark here."
"I'd tell you if I could, Commander, but I don't know why you've been recalled." He looked across the table into Regina's unreadable dark eyes and he chose his words carefully. He liked her, he respected her, her was happy to serve under her. But they weren't friends. They didn't share personal confidences. He didn't know, for sure, what her past with the first daughter had been. "No one reported any problems to me, either about my command or anything else. As for Ms. Swan, Ms. Swan is difficult."
Regina almost smiled at the enormous understatement but did not. She remained silent, watching him, waiting for the rest.
"She remains very reluctant to reveal her plans or destinations. She refuses to discuss personal...uh, relationships, so we have no intelligence regarding potential threats from that area. She slips our surveillance." He halted at the soft curse from Regina, then added quickly, "Not very often, but it happens."
"You reported that?" Regina asked. Fighting fatigue, she rubbed her face briefly. God, Emma is stubborn. But she couldn't blame her, not really. Living under the constant close examination of strangers was wearing, even under ordinary circumstances. And Emma Swan's circumstances were far from ordinary.
Graham straightened. "no, ma'am, I did not."
"Reasons?" She stared at him hard. The kind of breakdown in security he was describing usually demanded reassignment of the agents involved, often with demotions. But she knew Graham Humbert, and she knew he wouldn't bypass regulations just to save his own skin.
He met her gaze directly, and his voice was steady and sure. "Because she works with us most of the time, and I made the command decision that she was safer with us than with replacements she might not trust. Even if there were some problems."
Privately, Regina agreed. She had made similar choices herself where Emma was concerned. Had she been asked at the time, she wouldn't have been able to defend these, not according to regulations. But then, Emma Swan couldn't be dealt with by the book.
"I guess I'd better inform Cobra that I'm here." Regina stated. She wondered just how much Graham knew. "I'll review the plans for the remainder of the week with you later."
He stood. "Yes, ma'am."
As he watched her walk out, he understood that the subject of his breach in protocol was closed. Whoever had made the call to bring Regina Mills back as commander of the first daughter's security detail knew what they were doing. Regina understood what it took to guard Emma Swan. He wondered momentarily what would happen upstairs when Cobra learned of the change in command and decided there was some information he would rather not have. What he didn't know, he couldn't testify about.