Personal Protection. Julie Miller

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      With a nod to the officers who’d come to her aid, Officer Valentine pushed a long tendril of caramel-colored hair off her face and walked her prisoner through the maze of desks on the main floor. Her dialogue trailed off as they went their separate ways. “That was your big plan? Escape onto a floor filled with cops? Now I get to add a second assault charge...”

      Relief that Officer Valentine was all right, as well as admiration at how she’d handled the situation herself, eased the tension inside him. Ivan wondered at the rush of adrenaline he felt ebbing from his system and chalked it up to jet lag finally catching up with him.

      * * *

      “THIS IS EVERYTHING on my schedule while I am here in Kansas City.” Ivan forwarded the text from his chief of staff, Galina Honchar, to Captain Hendricks’s phone. In turn, Joe Hendricks, the captain of the Fourth Precinct, copied the list of events and locations to his administrative assistant in the adjoining office and asked her to make a printout. “Occasionally, a meeting runs long or something unexpected comes up...”

      “Last-minute changes could be handled by the liaison officer you’re asking for,” the captain finished. “She’ll be able to keep me in loop, so I can have whatever assistance is needed on standby.”

      That was part of his plan, Ivan conceded. “That would be a benefit to your department.” But he was asking for something more than a communications liaison with the local police.

      After sending Filip and Danya off to their respective meetings, the only person from Lukinburg here with Ivan on the third floor was Aleksandr Petrovic. Last he’d seen, Aleks was cooling his heels in Captain Hendricks’s outer office, chatting up the captain’s administrative assistant. Even though the woman wore a wedding ring and was obviously pregnant, flirting and having a good time seemed to be hardwired into Aleks’s DNA. He had survived the mines and poverty of Moravska, relying on hard work and sheer determination to leave his past behind him. His friend had been a city kid, raised in a modest neighborhood in St. Feodor, and had used that innate charm to impress the right people and negotiate one successful business deal after another. To look at them now, with their tailored suits and limousines, Ivan and Aleks seemed to be cut from the same cloth, but their personalities and backgrounds couldn’t be more different. Still, Aleks was the one confidant the prince had trusted with the real goal of this meeting, and, if he wasn’t too distracted by the woman out there, was keeping an eye out for when Milevski and the rest of the security team returned.

      Ivan was learning that secrecy was practically impossible for royalty. But that secrecy was necessary. The crumpled note sitting like a fishing weight in his pocket warned him that keeping his secrets was a matter of life-and-death. “I told my security chief that I have reconnected with an old flame in the US from my military days, when we did joint operations with other countries. That is why I am making this request privately. They believe I am being discreet for romance’s sake, not because I suspect a breach among the members of my entourage.”

      The black man with the weathered face and receding hairline nodded. “I can help you with your request to place an undercover operative inside your delegation for the duration of your visit. I’ve lined up a couple of candidates of the appropriate age for you to meet.”

      Ivan reminded him why he sought him out for assistance. “Finding a woman who served in the military is the only plausible way I could think of for me to have met an American and have had the time to develop a relationship with her. I worked with several American soldiers when I was in the military police.”

      “I haven’t told them why they’ve been summoned to my office yet. I have to admit, this feels a bit like I’m playing matchmaker.”

      “I assure you, that is not the case, Captain.” A tinge of awkwardness heated his skin. “I do not like that I have been forced into this situation. But I must choose a woman today, before I leave this building. My people must get used to seeing her with me. Masquerading as my...paramour...is the only way I can guarantee that we will have time alone to discuss who wants to kill me and devise strategy to unmask the traitor or traitors before they do me or anyone else harm. If I simply take on an American bodyguard, my security team will expect to be working together with that person. Since I do not know who I can trust, I require an ally who reports only to me, one who can convincingly play the role of consort to a prince, and whose qualities meet the needs of this very delicate investigation. I do not care what she looks like or if she fits some profile I would put on a dating site. She only needs to be good at her job.”

      “That’s what I needed to hear.” Hendricks pressed a sturdy index finger into the blotter on his desk, the gesture making Ivan think that warning finger would be pressed against his chest—royalty or not—if he dared to misuse one of Hendricks’s officers. “If I hear that anything freaky happens to my officer while she’s working with you, I promise I will bring the full force of this department down on your head.”

      “Understood. A good officer protects his troops. I respect that. And I will respect her.”

      Hendricks nodded. “Then let’s do this, Your Highness.”

      Ignoring the urge to rub at the tension cording the back of his neck, Ivan nodded his appreciation. He was still getting used to answering to prince and Your Highness, although the proud posture and cautious, controlled movements that had been drilled into him during his stint in the military and on a UN coalition team in Bosnia served him well in conveying the air of authority he needed to project. The suit and tie he wore were better fitted and more expensive than the clothes he’d worn when he’d been a happy, anonymous commoner. He’d put on the hand-me-downs he’d worn growing up in the poor mountain village where his aunt and uncle had raised him if it meant he could go back to being an ordinary guy without the death threats and suspicions about the people closest to him churning inside his brain. He’d trade his penthouse suite for his old studio apartment in Moravska if it meant he’d no longer have the future of an entire country resting on his shoulders.

      But those shoulders were broad and strong from the years he’d worked in the mines. The military had disciplined him, and a technology degree had given him a better life. He would do whatever was necessary to save the fledgling monarchy and put the discontents who would bring their country to its knees again out of business forever. Saving his own skin would be an added bonus.

      He adjusted the glasses that pinched his nose and looked across the desk into Joe Hendricks’s golden-brown eyes. “You understand my need for secrecy?”

      “I do.” The man with the salt-and-pepper hair that receded into twin points atop his coffee-colored skin leaned back in his chair. “The fewer people who know about this charade, the better. Only you, me and the officer you select will know exactly what’s going on. I’ll serve as her undercover handler on this assignment.” He rose from his chair and crossed to a set of blinds and opened them, revealing a bank of windows that overlooked a hallway and a beehive of desks and cubicle walls beyond that where uniformed officers, detectives, administrative staff and even a couple of criminals handcuffed to their chairs—including the lowlife who had attacked Officer Valentine—worked or waited. “If there’s any chance the threat is legit, and one of those people—what did you call them?”

      “They call themselves Lukin Loyalists. I call them the remnants of the mafia thugs who used to control our government. Lukin is a nickname we gave the citizens who were part of the underground resistance during World War II. These people are nothing like those brave souls.”

      “I thought I heard on the news a while back that the Loyalist situation had been resolved.”

      “So we thought.” Ivan inhaled a deep breath and slowly released his СКАЧАТЬ