Chapter One: A Study in Contrasts

He waited for her in the living room; she'd said she would be just a few more minutes. He admired the view of the Long Beach harbor from the floor to ceiling windows. It was that perfect hour, late in the day, when the water seemed to sparkle in the reflected light.

He wandered over to her bookshelves; you could always tell a lot about a person from their books: Why They Kill; Sacred Terror; A Natural History of Violence; Terrorism in Context; Blood on the Doorstep...he chuckled, wondering what in the world he had gotten himself into. In front of the books were a handful of framed photos of Darien with a gaggle of attractive girlfriends. Darien and friends in ball gowns—holding puppies?; Darien and friends in bikinis on the deck of some huge yacht; Darien and friends at the Pyramids; at a wedding; on a rooftop above the Vegas strip...either she spent most of her life on vacation, or she took a lot of pictures to document her escapades.

"Sorry it took me so long, I had a late meeting today so it took me a while to get home," she said, stepping into the living room.

She looked ready for a night on the town: four-inch platforms, dark brown hair down to her waist, silver hoop earrings, and a little body-skimming dress that left little to the imagination.

"Wow. You look amazing. Better than I remember," he said.

She laughed, "Well it has been a while...almost three weeks? And it was dark in the dance studio."

They'd met at a swing dance practice session a few weeks prior. They had exchanged email addresses but she left town on a business trip almost immediately after they met and had been mostly out of touch until yesterday.

"I'm so glad you emailed again, I'm sorry I was out of pocket for so long. Work gets crazy sometimes," she said.

He decided he'd wait until they were in the car to ask her more about her trip.

She led him out of the apartment, locking the door behind her, and followed him down to his car. He hadn't quite decided whether to play it casual or try to impress her. He was wearing his "I'm cool, but I'm casual" best: a white linen shirt--with a couple of buttons left undone, jeans and an expensive watch. He'd made reservations at two different restaurants, just to cover his bases. He shut the passenger door behind her, climbed into the driver's seat, and took off for the nicer of the two restaurants--figuring, he couldn’t go wrong with trying to impress on a first date.

"Not that I expected to hear from you, but where were you that you didn't have phone access for three weeks?" he asked.

"I was vacationing in beautiful Baghdad," she said, quirking her lip at him.

"Really?"

"Really! I told you when we met, I'm a terrorism consultant, remember? My company has been providing support to General Petraeus and his staff. And I do social network analysis-- mapping networks of relationships between individuals-- so I flew out to help map insurgent networks."

He couldn't help but laugh. "It's not that I don't believe you, but I just figured that was your 'bar story'.

“My bar story?”

“You know, the job you tell people when you meet them at a bar and you figure you'll never see them again?"

"Oh right, like a bar name! Actually, my bar story is that I'm the heiress to the porta potty fortune--that's a much funnier job. But why would I lie since I had every intention of seeing you again?"

"Well, I couldn’t know that! And you have to admit, you don't look like a terrorism expert. In fact, when we first met, I figured you were a stripper-- with a really imaginative bar story."

She wasn't quite sure if she should be offended, but she was from Vegas, so being mistaken for a stripper could have been a compliment. There were a lot of beautiful strippers in Vegas, after all. "Huh. A stripper? Why would you think that? If I remember correctly, I was wearing a twinset, for heaven's sake! Not that I don't dress a little revealingly when I'm headed out to party, but the night we met I was pretty conservatively dressed."

He looked like he was about to say more, but then he smiled and shook his head, “Who knows why I thought that? You have to admit it’s an unusual job but maybe more importantly…I guess I just meet a lot of strippers!”
…………………

Over their second bottle of wine she watched him, laughing at yet another of his funny stories. Chase was a good talker, and even more handsome when he was animated. She could tell he had a beautiful body under his shirt—a strong upper body, she vaguely recalled from their dance floor intimacy. She looked down at his hands. He’d said he was an architect, so he must be good with his hands; he certainly used them a lot as he illustrated his stories with gestures. She thought he had an interesting duality, coming across as a little dangerous, a little bad boy. But he said his mother had been a nun and he mentioned that he had gone to church every Sunday for the first twenty years of his life. He was a good talker—usually a feminine trait, but she felt safe with him, like he’d be more than happy to punch out the guy who grabbed her ass in the bar.

Finally, he stopped to take a breath, realizing he hadn’t given her much of a chance to tell her own stories. But she seemed so delighted with his, laughing until she teared up. He decided it was time to draw her out a little more, “So tell me about your work—if you’re allowed to talk about it.”

“Oh, I can talk about it in generalities, at least. I can tell you about some of my projects, although no details about the specific work I was doing in Iraq. I have a bunch of different projects for a number of government clients.” She thought for a moment, “I think my favorite project is one I just started on assassinations. We’re trying to think in a future-oriented timeframe about new and unusual ways that one might assassinate a political leader.”

He raised an eyebrow, “Can you give me an example….?”

“Sure.” She looked at him earnestly, “As it turns out, of the 87 different assassinations or attempted assassinations on US leaders since the late 1800s, 95% of them used a firearm at close-range. Nothing like a gun if you don’t mind being caught.”

“But as technology evolves, people are bound to try other methods, particularly if they don’t want to get caught. So, we’re trying to think about how an individual might adapt existing technologies, and then, what we can do to counter those efforts. Maybe our perpetrator is really into model airplanes. So he figures out a way to make it sturdy enough to carry a small bomb and manages to get it close to the principal’s head. Or maybe, he manages to get into a handshake line and covers his hand with some kind of skin soluble poison…” Darien trails off.

“Okay, but wouldn’t he poison himself in the process?” Chase asked.

“Maybe. But maybe he uses fake skin—or Nuskin—to protect himself. He could use a gel-based poison, so it’s slow acting and he has time to wash it off himself.”

Chase looks impressed, “Wow. Some job you have there. How long have you been doing this?”

“Since the late 1990s. I did my first homeland security project for the Department of Defense in the summer of 1999. But I always knew terrorism was a growth industry,” Darien laughs.

“Doesn’t it keep you up at night?”

“Uh, not really. Not unless mortars are being lobbed at my trailer on a regular basis—which was unfortunately the case for a few weeks while I was in Baghdad! But when I’m back stateside, and just doing the research end of it, I …well, you know, you have a greater chance of drowning in your bathtub than you do dying from a terrorist attack. So, I try to keep it in perspective.”

He looked at her across the table, her white teeth gleaming as she smiled broadly. Her eyes sparkled as though she was sharing a good joke with him. This was some first date. He wondered if she could really be as interesting as she seemed. She was smart, that much was obvious. But she didn’t seem to take herself seriously…and she dressed like an LA party girl. He thought she might even be wearing false eyelashes! And she wasn’t shy about showing off her cleavage, or the rest of her curves, for that matter.