“Yes, sir.” She was already moving before he finished, knowing she had only one chance to get this right. Only one chance to slip around and behind the cameraman unnoticed. Only one chance to quietly disarm the assassin-in-waiting and remove him from the apse without causing a stir.
* * *
Alec saw Angelina speaking quietly into her earpiece before slipping nearly unnoticed behind the people standing in the aisle watching the ceremony unfold. He glanced over to the right and recognized Captain Zale doing the same thing on the other side. Something was up.
He’d been watching Angelina for most of the time, not the ceremony, and now he cast his mind back quickly. What had she seen that he hadn’t? Then he remembered the moment she’d stiffened as she watched the royal family in front of the baptismal font. But then she’d relaxed, or seemed to. He surreptitiously slid a little to the left on the pew to get a better angle, and that’s when he noticed the cameraman behind and to the right of the altar.
Cameraman, he told himself. That has to be it. She saw something. Nothing else makes sense.
And though he didn’t have a clear view of the cameraman on the left, it didn’t take much for him to figure both cameramen were in on the conspiracy. And Angelina was attempting to take the one on the left down by stealth while Captain Zale did the same on the right.
The McKinnons were just taking their seats again, their role as godparents in the baptism finished, when Alec caught McKinnon’s eye and mouthed one word. Cameramen.
McKinnon unhurriedly took his seat, his gaze sliding away, but Alec saw him make the connection. Saw him bend and whisper in Princess Mara’s ear. Heard the princess’s slightly indrawn breath, but was inordinately proud of her when nothing showed on her face at the warning she’d just been given by her husband.
She turned toward Alec—a seemingly casual move—and whispered, “My brother will die before he lets anything happen to his son. Or his wife. Please, Alec. Please do what you must to protect him.”
“I’m on it,” he assured her. He slid slowly all the way to his left on the wooden pew, holding his breath, and muttered, “Excuse me,” to the people standing there as he slipped from the pew. Alec was shielded from the cameramen’s view by the people standing in the aisle—much as Angelina had been—and he quietly made his way behind them.
In his mind, as plain as if a map of the entire cathedral were laid out before him, he knew there was a side chapel ahead of him, knew taking that circuitous route was the only way someone would be able to sneak up behind the cameraman stationed on the left side of the apse behind the altar. Angelina would know that, too.
When he came to the entryway, Alec took it. People were seated in the side chapel, of course, and standing in the aisles. The side chapels were just as packed as the rest of the cathedral, even though the view of the proceedings from there would be limited. But that meant neither cameraman would be able to see him, either, especially since their cameras and their attention would be riveted on the royal family standing at the baptismal font.
Angelina was already on the far side from him; she must have quickly made her way all around the back of the side chapel and up to the front again. Alec saw her lips moving and knew she had to be communicating with someone else on the security team, but the distance was too great for him to hear what she was saying. He ignored the startled glances that came his way from the people in the pews and standing in the aisles as he followed the same path she must have followed.
He was still too far away when Angelina disappeared from view.
* * *
Angelina had drawn her gun, but her hand was half hidden in the sleeve of her blazer and her arm was down by her side to ensure as few people as possible spotted the gun she carried. All she needed was a few more seconds. Let no one raise the alarm, she prayed as she quietly moved along the back wall behind the cameraman.
The king turned with the baby in his hands, and the cameraman reached surreptitiously for the weapon half camouflaged by the steering ring to which it was affixed. But before his hand could grasp it, Angelina had her left forearm around his throat. Her gun was pressed against the right side of his neck, beneath his ear. “Do not move,” she said softly in Zakharan, for his ears alone. “Do not make a sound. Remove your hand—ah—slowly. Very slowly. Leave the gun where it is.” When he complied, she said, “Now back away from the camera.”
He was an inch or so taller than she was and a good forty pounds heavier, but she controlled him easily. She drew him backward from the camera’s stationary position in the apse to the back wall, thankful the camera provided some camouflage for what she was doing from the people in the main chapel. And the angle hid the back wall—and the two of them—from the side chapel’s view.