Her Secret Service (Jane Roe 1), Jason Letts [story reading .txt] 📗

Morrin blinked and openly rolled his eyes.

“There’s speculation that Martians disguised as aliens are among us, but that doesn’t make any of it true either. I understand people are going to follow this closely, and many can’t believe that two married people could naturally drift apart, but people looking for bombshell gossipy details between Bethany and I are either going to be disappointed or resort to inventing their own. That’s all I’ll be saying about the matter,” Morrin said, his hands on the ends of the chair’s arms like he was ready to get up and leave if Oliver asked one more question about the divorce.

He had about ten more planned, but Morrin did have a penchant for walking out in the middle of interviews if he didn’t like the direction they were going, and that left Oliver with no choice but to move on.

“Of course. Thank you for sharing all that,” Oliver said. “I can only imagine how difficult it is to focus on any of that with the recent threats against your life weighing on you. How did you react when you heard that someone responded to your Facebook post by saying he was planning to assassinate you?”

Morrin scratched his temple, looking thoughtful for a moment as though perhaps he wasn’t as invincible as he tried to let on. Oliver relished the pause and wondered if it could be extended in editing to make the president appear to be foolishly unable to answer, paralyzed by the fear of his own life’s abrupt end.

“My staff did let me know about the threat, and I saw your article. It reminds me of something John F. Kennedy said. If a person is totally determined to kill the president, there’s no foolproof way to stop him. His death in office is one of the great tragedies of our history, and while to a degree that may still be true we have made so many advances in security. I have the utmost confidence in the Secret Service, who do a legendary job protecting us every single day.”

“So no special precautions or changes that you’ve personally made because of the threat?”

Morrin breathed deeply and exhaled.

“I think the world has done a lot of that for me. We’re more connected than ever before with the Internet, and for many people these days it’s easier to just stay home than do whatever they did out and about before. To once again try to focus on how this is applicable to all Americans and not just me, we should all be thinking about our safety and taking care of ourselves. Because, no, I’m not too concerned about what some wacko thinks he’s going to try to do.”

Oliver smiled, wondering if the president could ever conceive that the person he was calling a wacko was sitting right in front of him. He’d learn soon enough that the intent was sound and the methods were clever.

“Are you saying you can’t imagine why resorting to something like this might seem like a rational option for someone? We’re living in a time of unprecedented crisis. Poverty is rising, standards of living are falling, society is undergoing a collapse that we never thought we’d see in our lifetimes. Have you really not examined your own role in all of this?”

Oliver grinned. In his mind these were the moments people would be looking to after the deed was done that would make them realize action was justified and someone had to take the fate of the nation into his own hands. Morrin looked clueless and uncomfortable doing anything but sitting behind a desk or standing behind a podium.

“Let me start by saying violence is never the answer. But just as important is that I was elected to address these problems, and saying that I’m responsible for them after only two months is unrealistic. Every day we’re working tirelessly to implement our plan to get people back on their feet, grow the economy, and make sure all across America a reasonable standard of living can be achieved. It’s not going to happen overnight.”

“I think you overestimate the patience of the American people at your peril, Mr. President,” Oliver said, staring straight into his eyes.

When the interview was over and the president and his posse had cleared out, Oliver sat alone in the library trying to analyze everything that had occurred in his mind’s eye. On the whole he was satisfied that this was going according to plan, but as he advised the president he was worried that he himself also wasn’t moving fast enough.

Heath was already back at the truck but would wait for him as long as necessary before they headed back to the Washington Post’s office, and by the time Oliver felt ready to get up and go his mindset was that he could’ve just as easily been going home to the residence right in this very building. It was galling that the president had no sense of responsibility for what was going on in the world. Soon enough everyone would know better.

But before he could leave the room, his phone buzzed and he reached into his pocket to get it. After answering, he learned it was someone named Nathan Carr from the Secret Service’s investigative division, asking him about how he learned about the threat against the president.

Looked like they were predictably floundering, desperate for answers only he could provide, and he’d cooked up a good one.

“I wish I could say I’d spotted it myself, but fortunately I’ve got a number of scouts surfing these pages looking for juicy comments. Not every day you spot one claiming they’re going to blow up the president, so I can understand why you’re so concerned. I can’t remember which one pointed me to the comment, but if you shoot a message to my email I can get you everything related to that. I hope it helps.”

Oliver ended the call feeling like