"Ms. Powell will not confirm any personal plans, which puts us in a reactive mode. I do not want her to get away from us, especially not now. I have a feeling shell be testing our new command. She is going to move, you can be sure of that. Keep a car accessible in case she grabs a cab, and have someone ready for foot pursuit, preferably a woman. If she goes to a gay bar, it might be easier if we have a woman on the inside."


"Weve had lousy luck so far," Mac remarked. "Half the time we lose her in transit."


Can stood, stretching her cramped shoulders. "That is no longer acceptable. Im going home. Page me the minute she steps out her door."


"Until what time?" Mac asked as he prepared to make a note.


"Anytime," she said with finality. "If she isnt in her apartment, I want to know about it."


"Yes, maam," Mac responded crisply. He watched her glance once around the room, assuring herself that all was in order, before she left. He had a feeling Egret was in for a surprise, and he was looking forward to seeing it.


**********


Cam stripped as she walked through her new apartment to the shower, eager to wash the effects of her flight and the first day of her new assignment from her body and her mind. The cool spray refreshed her, but did little to dispel the disquiet left from her meeting with Blair Powell.


It was not just the young woman's confrontational manner that had affected her. She was angry at herself for the physical response, however unwelcome, that the woman had provoked in her. She had been aware of an insistent pulse of stimulation long after she left the apartment. It may have been unbidden, but she felt betrayed by her own body. With an irritated shake of her head, she pulled on shorts and a tee-shirt. She could hardly be expected to control her involuntary nervous system! And here in New York there was no discrete way to relieve it. She would just have to run off the lingering remnants of arousal.


**********


Blair Powell looked down onto the busy streets below as Cam ran lightly down the steps of her brownstone and began her jog toward Central Park. She was very quickly swallowed by the crowds. An afterimage of her lean form lingered in Blairs mind as she reached for her phone. It occurred to her that the agents downstairs might be listening, but she no longer cared. She dialed a number from memory.


"Hey, you," she said with a smile in her voice, "How come youre working on a Saturday? ... Right! Youre still trying to be the youngest assistant director! ... Of course I need a favor! .... Background check - a Cameron Roberts. This might be a tough one. Shes secret service.... Yes, I know how much youre sacrificing! Just get me whatever you can. ... Call me as soon as you have something, okay? And hey - I know I owe you, really .... Not in this lifetime you wont!"


As she replaced the receiver, she contemplated calling downstairs to advise them of her change in plans. But then again, why alter the routine now. She slipped into a dark brown leather jacket as she left her apartment.


**********


The pager clipped to the waist band of the small pack Cam wore beeped just as she completed the first lap around the Central Park Resevoir. She dug out her cell phone, punching numbers with barely a break in stride.


"Roberts."


"Egrets on the move."


"Do we know her destination?"


"No, maam."


"Are we covering?"


"So far. Shes on foot and we have her in visual."


"Good. Dont attempt to make contact. Just stay with her. Ill be there in twenty minutes. And Fielding?"


"Yes maam?"


"Tell them not to lose her."


"Yes maam."


Please god, dont let us fuck up the first day, Agent John Fielding thought as he relayed his chiefs instructions to the two agents in pursuit.


**********


"Where is she?" Cam asked without preamble.


"At the Soho gym," Fielding replied with obvious relief.


"Do you have visual confirmation of that?"


"Yes maam. Paula Stark is inside."


Cam relaxed. "Good. Im going to shower and change. If she moves before I check in, call me."


Twenty minutes later she sat across the street from the Soho gym watching the entrance. A metallic blue Ford diagonally opposite her held two secret service agents doing the same thing. She didnt think they were aware of her. She wasnt watching them. She trusted her agents for this type of routine surveillance. She was there because she wanted to get a sense of Blair Powell. She wanted to know where she ate, where she shopped, where she went for entertainment, and where she spent her evenings. Then she would begin to feel she could protect her.


Four hours later she was beginning to fill in some of the blanks. From a distance she had observed Blair dine with an exotic appearing dark-haired woman in a small Italian restaurant in the west Village. From there the two women had walked a few blocks to a neighborhood gay bar for a nightcap. They had taken their time, window shopping, stopping off at a bookstore, purchasing espresso from a curbside stand. They were in the bar now, and so was one of her agents. She didnt really care if Blair saw him. Their presence should be anticipated. Cam simply told him to keep his distance and not to intrude upon them. Cam was considering calling it a night. It didnt look like this was anything more than an evening out for Blair Powell, and the team assigned to shadow her seemed to have things under control. She was reaching for her radio to check out when she spotted Blairs companion hurry from the bar and hail a cab. She was instantly alert.


"Young - this is Roberts. Do you have Egret in visual?"


"Negative. Shes in the restroom."


Cam switched channels. "Stark - get into that bathroom."


"Im on it," the female agent replied as she exited the car parked just down the street from the small corner bar.


The moments passed slowly until Cams earpiece crackled to life.


"Shes not in here, Chief," Stark announced.


"Recheck the entire bar. If shes not inside, start a sweep of the surrounding area. Shes on foot, at least for now." Cam punched in the numbers of the command center on her cell phone as she spoke. "Fielding, give me the addresses of all gay bars in a twenty block radius - start with known locales first."


While she waited for the computer to produce the information, she considered the situation. Blair had intentionally evaded them, which was not all that hard to do since they werent guarding her with the manpower a criminal surveillance would demand. That was because Blair was supposed to be a friendly protectee. Now that she was out of their range she was at potential risk for kidnapping, or if documented in some compromising circumstance, for blackmail. The fact that she was not easily identifiable as the Presidents daughter was the only thing they had going for them. It was going to be a long tense night until they found her.


"Ive got that list for you, Chief," Fielding said as he came on line.


"Go," she said. There were six potentials in the immediate area. "Get Mac Phillips in to co-ordinate the teams. Im going to check out the ones at the top of the list."


"Got it. Good luck," he signed off.


Right, Cam muttered to herself as she locked her car and joined the crowds on the ever busy streets of Greenwich Village. An hour later she paid her third cover charge of the evening and thanked a leather-clad bouncer for a particularly garish skull and cross bones stamped on her hand. She was in a loft on a dingy block just off Houston in a massive bar that was dimly lit with recessed red lights. The interior space was divided into several levels, with at least two bars, dance floors scattered at random, and what appeared to be a warren of smaller rooms in the rear. It was women only and predominately but not exclusively a leather bar. Cam bought a beer and began to wander through the crowded main room. Toward the rear, twisting halls led off to other rooms, all of them full. She glanced into each of the smaller areas she passed, noting that the overt sexual activity increased the deeper she went into the building. At one point she had to move sideways along the wall to pass two women with their hands inside each others clothing, oblivious to those passing by or standing in the shadows observing their heated encounter.


As soon as she pushed her way into the dark bar at the end of the long hallway, Cam saw her. She was leaning against the bar, facing the room. Cam turned her back, stepping behind several women grouped along the wall. She whispered her location and instructions to the other agents before returning her gaze to Blair Powell. The Presidents daughter had been joined by another woman, who pressed close against her in the crowded space. The stranger whispered urgently into Blairs ear. Blair gazed past her into the seething crowd of bodies on the small dance floor, not answering.


Cam observed the women impassively. Blair looked remote, as if her mind were elsewhere. The leatherclad woman with her was obviously trying to interest her in something a little more intimate. As she leaned to kiss Blairs neck, she ran a hand up the inside of Blairs bluejeaned thigh, and would have pressed her hand to the triangle between Blair's legs if Blair hadnt gripped her wrist, pushing her hand away at the last second. Throughout the entire time, Blairs face barely registered a response.