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

“His appearance is irrelevant to the mission,” she said, and Singh laughed.

“Maybe so, but it’s definitely not irrelevant in a popularity contest, and that’s what all this is. If you ask me, he’s being much too dim about his prospects. The president’s suddenly single with that face after a divorce that’s no fault of his own. There are a lot of ways people could get drawn in with the world’s most eligible bachelor.”

“Perhaps,” Jane said, keeping her cards close to her chest as she always did. The last thing she needed to do was give an opinion that influenced anything they did, because her only job was to keep the president safe.

A gasp from the secretary got their attention though, and they turned to see Ally Wilde staring at her computer screen.

“What is it?” Singh asked. When Ally turned to face them, some of the color seemed to drain out of her face.

“There’s a report about a death threat against the president.”

Jane felt her entire body tensing up as the pressure on her just tripled.

“You might be right that people will get drawn in all kinds of ways.”

2

The Roosevelt Room

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW

Washington, DC

Sitting alone at the long mahogany table, Jane had her phone out and was tapping messages back to the office and the leadership team about the disturbing development. This was an unusual death threat against the president, and she was going to make sure they mustered the full force of the Secret Service against it so that it didn’t start a pattern.

Through the windows in the walls and doors, she could see people going about their business in the West Wing, but her business was evaluating how to deal with this new threat. When someone threatened a Secret Service protectee, it launched a massive undertaking that investigated every aspect of the statement as well as the person who made it in order to determine their credibility.

Once they found out who did this, they would interview family members, neighbors, employers, friends. Searches would be performed. Every record imaginable would be pulled for signs of violent behavior. And then the investigative division would make one of three responses. They could let the person off with a stern warning, commit him or her for a psychiatric evaluation, or move forward with Class E felony charges that carried up to five years in jail.

But as Jane dug deeper into the details of the threat, she had no idea to which of those three ends this would lead. The threat was made in a comment replying to one of the posts from the president’s official page on Facebook, where a user named Kevin Neilson wrote, “Enough is enough. I’m going to do the world a favor and blow this man up.”

Other than the sense of aggravation she felt at the threat, the line didn’t give her much to go on in terms of specificity that she could act against. What was more, the actual post and the account used to make it had already been deleted, although Facebook would preserve those records for their review, but it meant she couldn’t immediately start digging into who Kevin Neilson was.

The investigative division would have to brief her on their findings later, but for now Jane needed to review the security protocols for the president’s Secret Service detail to make sure they adequately addressed the possibility of this new threat. That became hard to do when the sound of the door latch opening got her attention and a small someone came into the room.

It was Dollmaker, the vice president’s ten-year-old granddaughter, who was wearing a floral dress with stockings and a ribbon in her blonde hair. Everyone in the vice president’s family had code names starting with the letter D. The girl’s real name escaped Jane’s memory at the moment, but she and her family must’ve been visiting, and entering rooms unannounced didn’t seem to trouble the girl one bit.

“What are you doing?” the girl asked, as though Jane was the one not where she was supposed to be. Right on cue, a man in a black suit and glasses appeared in the hallway behind her, standing guard since the vice president had extended Secret Service protection to his family. At least there was no real risk of her getting lost.

“I’m working,” Jane said with a smile, expecting that to be all for their conversation, but the little girl didn’t go anywhere.

“What’s your job?”

Jane put down her phone and turned to face her inquisitive visitor. She had a lot to do, but the security in place for the president while he was in his office would hold up for a little while longer.

“I manage staffing and logistics for the Secret Service’s Presidential Protection Division,” she said, wondering if that answer would fly over her head. “I work with your friends who are following you around.”

The girl, Reina was her name, glanced over her shoulder at the agent before looking back at Jane with pursed lips.

“They’re not very friendly,” Reina said in a way that was too cute, like Anna from Frozen who was wandering about the castle without anyone to play with.

Jane put her hands on her knees and leaned closer.

“They are, but they’ve got a very important job to do that takes up all of their attention, and that’s to keep you safe,” she said.

Bouncing on her heels, Reina shrugged with her entire body.

“I’m going to be fine though.”

Taking a deep breath, Jane imagined some of the ways she might not be fine. There were people out there who would have some pretty bad ideas about how the vice president’s granddaughter could be useful.

“You are, and part of that’s going to be because we’re going to work very hard to keep it that way. But we never know what’s going to happen to us, so it’s better to be safe than sorry,” she said.

Reina peered deeply at Jane, who for the life of her couldn’t figure out what the girl