Defense Breach

By Lisa Phillips

When one of their own is targeted the Secret Service Agents must protect her

Counting the days until she's officially an agent, Secret Service trainee Skylar Austin is blindsided when she's nearly killed during a training exercise at the White House. Veteran agent Grady Farrow recognises a dead–serious threat when he sees one. Someone is gunning for the pretty young rookie. But if they want to get to Skylar, they'll have to go through Grady first.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Australia
• Release date: Sep 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781489271341

Lisa Phillips

USA Today and Publishers Weekly Bestselling Author Lisa Phillips is a British ex-pat who grew up an hour outside of London. It wasn't until her Bible College graduation that she figured out she was a writer (someone told her). Since then she's discovered a penchant for high-stakes stories of mayhem and disaster where you can find made-for-each-other love that always ends in happily ever after. Find out more at www.authorlisaphillips.com

Book preview

ONE

Skylar Austin trailed along in a line of veterans and their families waiting for their VIP tour of the White House. As a former army corporal, she’d technically qualified for the tour. However, today she wasn’t dressed as herself. Some of the finest deception experts the FBI employed had disguised her as an eighty-two-year-old lady. They were so good she even had wrinkles.

This way, ma’am.

Skylar nodded to the Secret Service agent, considering whether to call him son. No, it was best to stay as quiet as possible. Otherwise she might give herself away. The success of her team—the hostiles—meant she had to stay in character. Not let on that she wasn’t who her ID said she was. Just the fact that the Secret Service hadn’t questioned her fake driver’s license said something about the quality of the fabrication.

Did she feel guilty about the fact that she was fooling the Secret Service, breaking into the White House to get up to trouble? No way. They were expecting her team. They would be ready for the exercise. The Secret Service didn’t know when it would start, but the hostiles did.

Skylar checked her watch. It was just after six thirty in the morning. Seven minutes until go time.

The line of tourists snaked around a security building at the southeast entrance. Skylar had to give them credit. She’d learned a lot in the past few weeks spent at Secret Service training. Security at the White House was good. Almost impenetrable, in fact. She figured almost since the Secret Service could never assume a breach of their defenses was impossible.

Soon enough she would be one of them—a real agent. Skylar smiled as she stepped inside the security office. She’d already had the full-body scan. Now she stood by a desk, staffed by a big Secret Service agent. He was sitting, so she couldn’t see how tall he was. His dark brown hair was cut short, his eyes denim blue. Brooding.

Sunglasses had been pushed up on top of his head. His bulky vest was covered with pouches, and a dozen things had been clipped to his belt. He pulled a cell phone from the zippered pouch on the left front side of this vest, looked at the screen for a second and then replaced it.

He glanced up at her, caught her staring at him and gave her a perfunctory nod. If she wasn’t dressed as an elderly lady she might be offended he hadn’t given her more attention than that. Her ex-husband, Earl, had been a flatterer.

Ancient history.

Last month was the second anniversary of their divorce going through. There had been some good times. Early on. Like, really early. Before he’d started cheating on her.

She wasn’t going to look at the cute agent again. Skylar was done with relationships. Done like burned toast—throw it in the trash and hit the drive-through on the way to work. Done.

The line inched around the desk, toward the kind of security checkpoint present in basically every building in Washington. Surrender all bags to be scanned, and walk through the metal detector—just like the ones in the airport. At the corner of the desk, she glanced one more time in the direction of the agent. Banks of phones. Computers. The file open in front of him.

Skylar sucked in a breath so fast it got stuck. Forced to cough, she pulled a handkerchief from the sleeve of her blouse and held it in front of her mouth.

Ma’am? The agent looked over. Are you okay? Concern softened his features. His voice was like the rumble of car tires on a country road. She could listen to that all day.

Skylar nodded even though she was far from okay. The file had her picture on the first page, along with her personal information. Why was the agent looking at her file?

Skylar had to continue. There was nothing else she could do. It was probably part of the exercise. But that didn’t negate the surprise at seeing her own face in the folder.

The Secret Service higher-ups knew she’d been sent to the White House, and she just wanted to get on with the day’s activities. Did he know she was part of the exercise? Did the file tell him she was currently an agent-in-training?

She’d scored so high, busting through long-held records by an agent named Grady Farrow that they’d offered her this opportunity. The chance to be part of an actual Secret Service exercise.

The event today was real—the White House wanted to honor veterans with a special tour. The first family was at Camp David this week, and the West Wing was undergoing renovations, so a lot of the staff were working from home. As soon as most of the tour people had exited the front door, everything would really begin.

She’d been briefed, and she was going to carry out those instructions to the letter. The Secret Service, and all their personnel and dogs, were experts. Still, the higher-ups figured there was always opportunity to improve. They were going to test their response time in a live environment.

Skylar was part of a group which consisted of three people on the tour and three currently posing as HVAC repairmen who were supposed to take a couple of on-duty agents as hostages. Then the plan was to hole up in one of the rooms and make demands. There was a whole script to follow.

Since it was actually really difficult to take over the White House—a good thing, given their job was to protect the president and his family—they also had a mole in the Secret Service who was going to help them. The job of the agents on duty was to resolve the situation and figure out which one of them was working with the hostiles. Personnel were far more vulnerable and susceptible to security breaches than any computer system.

After the security checkpoint, the tour headed outside and up a path that wound around a corner to the East Wing entrance. An agent waited outside the door, dog at her side. Skylar gave her a nod and said, Morning.

They trailed down a long hallway. Rooms had been roped off and carpets rolled up so they didn’t mar the fabric with their shoes. Skylar didn’t want to feel like a peon, but it kind of did make her feel inferior that she wasn’t even allowed to walk on their rugs.

The whole place didn’t seem all that dated, like a lot of historic buildings. Maybe it just didn’t get used that much, and they cleaned it really well. She’d been in some old castles in Europe, on weekend leave, back in her army days. Those had been visibly old. Crumbling walls, and a stale smell. The White House was pristine, and yet Skylar couldn’t even appreciate the splendor of it. Not with the impending exercise.

They meandered past the library. Agents watching over the tour from both ends of the hallway were engaged in conversation with some of the vets.

She checked her watch.

Two minutes until—

Yes, now! The words were a brash whisper from a man in front of her. Not a great attempt by him at lowering his voice.

He spoke closely to the guy beside him. Both were dressed in army uniforms, and she recognized them from the briefing but couldn’t remember their names.

She was the only other person close to them. The line had thinned out to small groups lingering through the tour route. No one paid any attention to the little old lady.

The library is coming up, the first said. It’s right here. Thirty seconds. You distract them, and I’ll run in and grab it. I’m sure it’s there. Wilson will probably pay us double if we do this with no fuss.

Grab it?

Were they going to steal something?

Skylar gasped. The two men turned. She fumbled for a weapon she wasn’t carrying, instinct driving her to the crux of her training. But it was no use. The two men grabbed her.

They crowded her against the wall, both standing way too close, but casual. Like they were just talking.

A gun pressed into her ribs.

Wanna know what happens to eavesdroppers?

* * *

Secret Service agent Grady Farrow shut the file and leaned back in his chair. Most of the veterans had filed through, leaving the office quiet now. How he was supposed to find Skylar Austin, former army corporal and current Secret Service trainee, was anyone’s guess. She was part of the exercise, and Grady had been picked to keep an eye on her.

They had no idea when the exercise was going to happen, but he’d kind of hoped she would be on this tour of veterans. Her name hadn’t even been on the list, though, so that was out. He flipped the file open again and stared at the photo of her—blond hair, and those blue-gray eyes. He’d stared at it far too much already. She was beautiful, but his assignment was to make sure she had a good experience as part of the exercise.

His job was to protect the president, but it was so much more than that. The Secret Service also protected the White House and all the people who worked here, investigated financial crimes and had offices all over the world. The scope of what they did was huge.

As part of the White House detail, Grady served the office of the president rather than the man himself. No matter who held the title, Grady’s job was to be on duty. Day to day, it wasn’t super exciting. If it was, that meant something had gone wrong. No one looked forward to that. Secret Service agents liked quiet days where they didn’t have to deal with attention-seekers trying to run across the south lawn. There wasn’t an agent employed here who enjoyed taking down a misguided member of the public.

He swiveled in his chair and rolled his shoulders. The constant vigilance was exhausting. The exercise would be a good distraction from whatever was nagging at him. This unsettled feeling hadn’t gone away since he’d left the party for his thirty-second birthday. Four months ago.

He was starting to wonder if he’d have to live with it for the rest of his life. Not that Grady could even put a finger on what was bugging him. His mom said he needed to start dating again, since it’d been more than a year. But after Paula had left him for the friend that was supposed to have been his best man, he didn’t feel like he had all that much to give to a woman.

There must have been a reason Paula had cheated on him and then dumped him. The other agents told him to buck up and get back on the horse. Stringer, his closest friend, kept telling him about nice women he met but didn’t want to date himself. Like he’d just pass them along. Grady mostly ignored it, considering Stringer wasn’t going to explain what his deal was.

His radio crackled. The announcement drew his eyebrows up as he realized the scope of what was going on. A full on brawl in the entrance hall? The exercise.

Agent Stringer rapped twice on the doorjamb. Let’s go.

Grady rushed after him to the cabinet where the rifles loaded with blanks were kept. They had guns with live rounds on them at all times. No one was going to lay those down, even for an exercise. However, if they had to shoot a so-called hostile it was better to do that with blank bullets when this was only role play.

He and Stringer headed to the east entrance and took the stairs up to the hall where a fight had broken out. The tour had made its way through, and now most of them were outside. The stragglers had apparently walked slowly in order to start the exercise.

Two men were facedown, being cuffed by agents, while others looked on. If this was the exercise, it had failed. Were they simply that good at their jobs, or was this only one part of a larger plan? It could be nothing more than a distraction for a multipronged attack. They’d have to be cautious still.

The veterans?

Grady said, I guess so. Was this their whole plan?

If it was, his friend replied, it wasn’t a good one.

Grady grinned. And we got here too late to help. Not that there wasn’t still plenty to do, but they’d missed the bulk of the action. Maybe.

He motioned to the door at the far end of the entrance hall. I’m going to sweep that side. He gestured at the usher’s closet, behind which was the family dining room and a pantry along with a hallway, stairs and an elevator. Plenty of places for hostiles to hide. Plenty of blind corners, and an escape route for any hostile wanting to regroup in order to plan the next phase of their operation.

Stringer nodded. I’ll work on this end.

Grady radioed in to Command and got the go-ahead. Between the two of them, and the other agents no doubt now dispersing through the White House, they’d get the hostiles all cleared out in no time.

There was no way things had begun and ended with a fight in the entrance hall. Some of that was likely veterans not knowing an exercise was taking place. They’d be questioned and then released. The hostiles already arrested would be a point each for the Secret Service. If they scored too low, though, heads would no doubt roll.

No one in the Service wanted that to happen.

Grady twisted the door handle but froze immediately when he heard voices.

I didn’t hear anything, a woman pleaded. I don’t know anything. He could hear the desperation in the woman’s voice. An innocent had been caught up in the exercise? Grady’s brain spun with what this could meant.

A man snorted. Won’t matter. Either way, you’ll be dead. No one will be any wiser until your body is on a slab at the morgue and they realize you lied to everyone. He laughed. We’ll make them think you’re behind all this.

Grady wasn’t about to let the woman get hurt. He kicked the door open. Freeze! Two men started. Both dressed in army uniforms, they had been part of the tour. Guns on the floor. Hands up.

The woman they had with them wasn’t at all what he’d expected. Her voice hadn’t made her sound all that advanced in age, but she seemed to be in her wise years. He said, Drop your weapons, and put—

One gunman, the one closest to Grady, turned and shoved the other as he fled the room out the back door. The man he’d shoved stumbled to one side, his gun up and pointed at the woman. It went off. The blast was loud in the small room.

The woman’s breath escaped in an oof, and he heard her go down. Grady was already running at the man before he even registered the move. He slammed into the guy and tackled him to the ground.

The man fought him, waving the gun around.

Grady grasped his wrist and slammed it against the floor until he let go. You’re under arrest. Then he flipped the man to his front and zip-tied him, while the captive grunted and struggled.

Had he killed that poor woman?

TWO

Grady sank to one knee beside her, pulled his radio out with one hand and called in to Command about the man who’d run off. There wasn’t any visible blood, and yet her floral print dress had a hole in the front. He laid two fingers of his free hand on her throat. Strong and steady pulse. She was alive? He glanced back at the gunman he’d secured, now lying on his side watching them. Johnson his shirt said. Was that his real name?

Command responded that they would send agents to find the man who’d run off.

Grady said, See if you can figure out why he has a weapon with real bullets as well. A woman had been caught in the crossfire because someone messed up. None of the hostiles were supposed to have real bullets, just blanks. And how had the man managed to get that past security? I’ll bring in the guy I have here, once I get the woman up and escorted out.

The woman gasped. He looked at her in time to see her eyes were open. She sat halfway up, much faster than an old woman should react. What—

He touched her shoulder, keeping half his attention on the man. Easy.

She shifted her shoulders and hissed in pain. I can’t believe they shot me. The woman felt the area where the bullet had hit her, then pulled aside the hole to reveal the end of a bullet lodged there.

You have a protective vest on? If she was fine, he didn’t need an ambulance to come. But he did need to get the gunman glaring at him from the floor booked into custody. They would have to figure out who his partner was, and whether this was all part of the exercise. But why involve an old woman?

One wearing a vest.

Okay, so nothing about this made any sense.

The woman sat up fully, frowned and scooted farther from him on the floor. Her gaze was a million miles away. They were going to shoot me.

Who are you? Nothing about her made any sense. I’m glad you’re alive and all, but you need to start talking.

She clasped one wrist with her other and slid her hand down, peeling back the skin.

Wha—

The wrinkles fell to the floor and revealed soft skin on her wrist and hand. Young skin. Now that he was closer to her, not behind the security desk, he realized her gray hair looked like it could be a wig. But without the discrepancy between