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

are laxer here than they are down south. This is the Secret Service. Nobody has time for a family, let alone a relationship. But that doesn’t mean we can’t make a connection.”

The elevator doors opened in front of them, and Jane briskly stepped inside. Something about his comment stung. Maybe it was because it was the truth and the cost of protecting people so closely was that it was hard to keep people close to themselves. But that didn’t make her any more inclined to go along with him.

“Sorry,” she said, shrugging as he looked her up and down.

“Next time,” Nathan said.

The doors sealed, and once they were shut Jane closed her eyes as she calculated whether she’d need to be fending off advances from him all the time, whether that would be fun or annoying, and whether he’d catch her on a particularly exhausting or frustrating day when she might end up saying yes.

Either way, she walked out of headquarters and went to her car, preparing to drive back to her neighborhood in Brentwood on the northeast side of the city, where the catcalls and the unsolicited offers for all kinds of things were definitely not in any way welcome. Her building on Adams Street was the kind of place most people didn’t stay in for long, but all she needed it for was four walls and a bed.

As she stepped into the dreary gray building and approached her door on the third floor, stopping to stare, it again struck her how the place she called home could barely provide that. The door’s lock had some scuff marks on it that weren’t there before, and she twisted the knob without even needing to pull out her key.

She stepped inside her dark hallway, listening carefully for signs that anyone was around. It was quiet, but she saw that a couple of her cabinets and drawers had been pulled open. Glancing in her other rooms informed her that no one was still around but that this time her silverware had been taken, because she’d learned from the previous two break-ins over the past year not to leave anything of value in her apartment.

As she put in another call to the locksmith, who she had on speed dial at this point, and her MIA landlord that wouldn’t spend money on better doors if his life depended on it, she wondered how a cheap place to live kept ending up being so expensive.

As discomforting and unsettling as the invasion had been, she secured the door as much as possible and pulled her laptop from her bag. Without any silverware, she started eating the bowl of Lucky Charms cereal she usually had dry as she burrowed under a blanket and watched old cartoons on the screen in front of her.

Jane did her best to focus on the bright colors and avoid thinking about where any of the things that happened that day would lead, if only for a little while.

3

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW

Washington, DC

Killing the president was going to be easy. What came after would be hard.

Oliver Ip sauntered into the White House on a beautiful day in late March that felt like spring was arriving in earnest. Smiling, he sailed through the security checkpoint at the interior of the building after passing through the metal detector, a cursory glance in his unzipped bag that could’ve contained almost anything at the bottom, and best of all a perfunctory scan of his ID badge and pre-approved security clearance.

That was his golden ticket, providing him with nearly unlimited ability to move around in proximity to the phony Stooge running the United States.

The incompetent Secret Service agent extended a hand for him to pass through into the entrance hall, and Oliver strolled forward as he had a thousand times with a deep breath and a feeling that this was where he belonged. In fact, everything around him from the flags beside the doorways to the presidential portraits should’ve been his. He knew he was on par with any of the men who’d had the top job, not to mention being head and shoulders above the one who had it currently.

And yet Oliver was here to do a simple, mundane job far below what he rightfully deserved. Did he mention that he had the exact same birthdate as Alex Morrin? To the year and everything. They were born only two hours apart. And yet Morrin was the leader of the free world and Oliver reported about what important people did and what unimportant people thought about them.

“Mr. Ip, welcome. You must be excited,” said the White House Communications Director, Tanner Young, a recent Ivy League grad and political phenom who must’ve himself had some lofty ambitions. Too bad his red hair meant he could never win a national election. Oliver smiled.

“Very excited,” he said truthfully.

Young showed Oliver into the Library Room, where a couple of chairs had been set out a few feet apart and a trio of cameras had already been setup. Oliver’s cameraman, Heath, was busily arranging everything, mics were in place, the final preparations being made for a tete-a-tete that would change American history and save the country. Oliver set his hand on the back of his ornate wooden chair with the red felt upholstery by the fireplace and tried to savor the moment. This was where they would say it started, the transfer of power.

“He’ll be in momentarily,” Young said, stepping out and leaving Oliver alone with the cameraman, who gave a jerky nod. Heath was also oblivious to what was really happening, as was everyone. Breathing a word of his plans to another soul would be foolish in the extreme, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t find a way to prime the pump.

“Make sure I don’t have too much light. I hate it when the shine makes it seem like my hair is greasy,” Oliver said. Heath gave a noncommittal nod that burned him. Oliver yearned for the day