Undercover by Danielle Steel Read Free Book Online Page B

the last eight months between assignments, and they sent me over here, on loan to you.” Marshall smiled.
    “This must seem very dull to you,” the president said, raising an eyebrow, impressed by his work history. The undercover DEA boys were a hardcore elite, and lived an entirely different life in hardship conditions, at constant risk.
    “No, sir. Just different. The Pentagon is a lot quieter than this.” There had been a lot of activity around him all day. He was more of a passive but alert observer, unless the president went somewhere, which he hadn’t. He had been busy in the Oval Office since early morning, except when he escorted his daughter upstairs.
    “Well, welcome to the White House. I hope you’ll enjoy it. We’re happy to have you as part of the team,” the president said warmly, and then went to speak to one of his secretaries, got in the private elevator immediately afterward, and went upstairs. Phillip Armstrong seemed like a quiet, wholesome family man, and he’d been pleasant to Marshall and made him feel at home on his first day. He was a likable man, and the polls said that the majority of Americans liked him as well.
    When Marshall left the White House after his first day of work, it had been a good day. He wasn’t hunting down bad guys or trying to outsmart them, or arranging for transport of tons of cocaine to Africa, the Caribbean, or the United States. Today had seemed like a normal day at work, although he was working at the White House, and chatting with the president of the United States, and Marshall was beginning to think that maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, for a while anyway. And he liked meeting the little girl. He smiled to himself as he drove home to his furnished apartment in Georgetown, and tonight it actually felt like home to him, despite the bare walls and sparse decor. And as he looked around, he realized that he needed to do something to warm it up a little. He felt as though he were seeing his apartment with new eyes. And for the first time since leaving Colombia and learning of Paloma’s and the baby’s deaths, he felt alive again. A little girl in braids with sparkly pink shoes had touched his heart and made it a good day.

Chapter 4
    The next day at the White House was far more active than the first. Marshall was part of a detail of six Secret Service men who accompanied the president by helicopter to a meeting held at Camp David, with the British prime minister. They stayed there through lunch, and then the president spoke in Congress, and it was midafternoon by the time they got back to the White House. It had been an interesting day, and the British prime minister and his aides had been very pleasant to them all. The Secret Service men and their British counterparts had chatted and had a few good laughs. And there was something exciting about the people they met on the job. Marshall had had a chance to talk to the other Secret Service men, while they waited through lunch. They appeared to have a relaxed, easygoing style about them, but were always on the alert. One of them had been in the job for more than twenty years, but the others were closer to Marshall’s age. They were intrigued when he said he was DEA, and was recently back from six years in the field in South America, which they knew meant he must have been assigned to the drug cartels, which instantly won their respect.
    “This must be a hell of a change,” one of the younger men said admiringly. “I thought about DEA, but I got married right out of college, and you can’t have a wife and family and do that kind of work.” Marshall thought instantly of Paloma and their baby and nodded. “You’re lucky you got out in one piece. You hear bad stories.” Yes, of the woman you love and the baby she’s carrying being murdered as a reprisal, Marshall thought and didn’t say it.
    “Yeah, there are bad stories,” Marshall conceded but didn’t volunteer any information about himself. He was used to