Thorn studied his reflection in the mirror, turning his face first one way and then the other to make sure he’d hit all the right spots with his razor. Satisfied, he tugged at the collar of his blue button-down shirt, loosening it just a touch to let some oxygen down his windpipe. He looked more critically at his reflected image, eyeing the shirt, patterned red tie, and lightweight grey suit with a slight frown. They made him look more like a typical D.C. bureaucrat than he cared to at the moment. As a Delta Force operator, Thorn was used to wearing civilian clothes, but his personal tastes off duty ran more to blue jeans and boots than wool slacks and dress shoes.
Buck up, boyo, he told himself sternly. This was a special occasion after all. It had taken nearly two weeks of fairly regular phone calls, but he and Helen Gray had finally managed to synchronise their busy schedules for an evening out. He intended to make the most of it. Besides, Washington’s finer dining establishments usually had a particular place reserved for people who showed up in casual clothes. They called it the exit.
Thorn checked his watch, swore at himself, and grabbed his car keys off his nightstand on the way downstairs and out the door. He’d made a reservation at Stannard’s one of the capital’s most elegant restaurants for eight o’clock. It was already past seven.
Nearly an hour later, Thorn pushed his way into the Stannard Hotel’s packed foyer. The blast of overworked airconditioning came as a much-needed relief after his dash through the hot, muggy evening outside.
Despite his best efforts, he was late. First, some idiot had stalled out on rteenth Street Bridge, tying northbound traffic into knots. That was bad, but even a few weeks in the D.C. area had taught him to allow for delays on the highways. What he hadn’t anticipated was the near-total gridlock on the capital’s downtown streets long after the normal working day had come to a close. For a lot of people in this town, parking apparently meant double-parking, turning their blinkers on, and then going off to run errands. As a result, the crowded streets off Pennsylvania Avenue were a zoo down to one lane in places and full of pedestrians darting across without bothering to look for oncoming traffic..
Stannard’s small, richly appointed lobby was a sea of suits and evening dresses jammed with people waiting for tables who had spilled out of an adjoining bar with drinks in hand and their voices at full volume. Thorn slid through the throng, searching for Helen halt afraid she wasn’t there and half hoping that she, too, was late.
“Peter! Over here!”
He turned toward the familiar voice with relief and saw Helen Gray smiling at him. Smart woman, he thought. She’d taken a station in a corner near the entrance to the dining room, shielding herself from the worst of the crush while still securing a good vantage point. He made his way to her side with all possible speed.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said hurriedly.
“You should be.” Her eyes twinkled. “I’ve already been propositioned by an Arab sheik, a labor lawyer, and a dairy industry lobbyist.”
Ouch. Thorn looked carefully at the floor and then back at her. He shook his head soberly. “I don’t see any bodies. What happened? Your pistol jam?”
Helen laughed. “No. I left it at home. It didn’t go with the dress.”
She was right, Thorn decided, a 9mm Beretta would definitely look out of place on the elegantly dressed woman in front of him.
He’d thought the black number he’d first seen her in at Fort Bragg was nice, but the dress she had on now was stunning. It was cut low enough to show off her tanned shoulders and the upper curves of her firm, perfectly proportioned breasts. It was the kind of dress that invited open admiration from men and barely concealed envy from other women. It was a dress he thought would look even better on its way off. Down boy, down! he told his libido, wondering again what it was about this woman, out of all women, that made him think and act so much like an oversexed, under brained teenager.
He cleared his throat and sought more neutral mental ground. “Maybe we’d better see about getting our table.”
“Absolutely,” Helen agreed. From the satisfied look on her face she’d probably been reading his mind.
She nodded toward the tall, imposing figure of a manta stiff and fommal in a tuxedo and firmly ensconced behind a lectern at the entrance to Stannard’s oak-paneled dining room. “I tried to check in earlier, but Prince Charming there seems to think that only someone named Thorn can confirm a reservation made by someone named Thorn.”
Her voice left no doubt about her feelings toward the kind of person who would uphold such an idiotic policy. Thorn had a sudden vision involving punji sticks, barbed wire, honey, and an anthill. He shook his head, very glad he wasn’t in the other man’s pointy black shoes, and led her up to the lectern.
Thirty seconds later he was beginning to plan his own prolonged and painful revenge on the Castro d’.
He gritted his teeth and tried again. “Look, my name is Peter Thorn. I made a reservation for eight o’clock tonight two days ago. Check your book.”
“Yes, sir.” The restaurant’s maltre d’ seemed completely unimpressed.
“I have checked. Your reservation is perfectly in order.” He offered them a bland, disinterested smile. “But I am afraid we are running slightly behind schedule this evening. I will be happy to seat you as soon as the first available table opens up.”
“And just when will that be?”
“Not very long.” The other man pursed his lips, making a pretence of giving the matter some thought. “Not longer than half an hour, I would guess. Certainly not more than forty-five minutes.”
“Forty-five minutes?” Thorn held a tight rein on his temper. He’d only picked Stannard’s because some of the other officers in the Pentagon mess had described the place as a Washington landmark. He was beginning to realize that wasn’t any kind of guarantee of good service. More and more, John F. Kennedy’s description of the capital city as a place that combined southern efficiency with northern courtesy seemed right on target.
The maitre d’s bored eyes slid past him and brightened. “Ah, Senator! It is delightful to see you.”
“Thank you, Henry. My committee meeting ran a little over tonight. Can you squeeze me in?”
Thorn glanced around far enough to catch a profile made famous by years of network television news coverage and tabloid scandal.
“Of course, Senator.” The maitre d’ snatched up a leather-bound menu from his stand and gestured toward the dining room. “Please follow me, I have just the right table for you.”
Thorn watched him go through narrowed eyes. Why, that pompous, lying, no-good son of a bitch. Overhearing snatches of some of the snide, cynical conversations going on around him only fed his growing anger.
“So the chairman said to him, ‘You either play ball on this amendment, Phil, or you can kiss that new overpass goodbye…’ ”
“… the old bastard’s screwing his administrative assistant worse than he is the taxpayers…”
“We slipped some language into the rider to smooth the hicks over, but Morgan may be a problem…”
Thorn shook his head in disgust. D.C. landmark’ dots this was not his kind of place. Worse, he was probably batting a big fat .000 in Helen’s eyes. He heard a muffled chuckle from her direction and turned toward her.
The look of amused sympathy on her face restored some of his good humor. If she wasn’t holding this fast-developing fiasco against him, it still wasn’t too late to salvage something from this evening. He shrugged ruefully. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
She grinned back. “Yep. I certainly am. I say we blow this Popsicle stand. I prefer eating without all the pomp, circumstance, and hot air.”