Her Secret Service (Jane Roe 1) by Jason Letts (sites to read books for free TXT) 📗

to accept; hearing from someone on the investigations side was perfect. She wanted answers.

“Hey Nathan, I presume you heard about the little surprise we went through,” she said.

“Are you OK? Is everyone in one piece?” he asked, his deep voice in her ear providing more comfort than she would’ve thought.

“More or less,” she said, not wanting to bring up the mild trauma with Dedan right next to her. “But what do you know so far?”

Some breathing came over the line that wasn’t making her optimistic about receiving a concrete answer.

“Remember that unlike with death threats and counterfeit issues, anything like an assassination, an assassination attempt, or a physical conflict is the purview of the FBI. We’re able to get bits and pieces, but they are already there performing their investigation now that the plane has been evacuated,” he said.

“Yes, has anything turned up?”

“I did listen in after they’d conducted a search and concluded that no more explosives were present, but without a doubt an Improvised Explosive Device went off on the plane. The luggage compartment is a mess with severe blast and fire damage to a number of items.”

Jane shut her eyes, suddenly feeling thankful that she was still alive when from the sounds if it other possibilities were present.

“But that being said,” Nathan went on, “the force of the blast, even when accounting for the significant fortifications of Air Force One, suggest that there was never any risk of the explosion successfully taking the plane down. We just don’t yet know what the plan was or why it happened this way.”

“I see,” Jane said, blinking. “I’m sure the president will be relieved to hear that.”

Her biting sarcasm wasn’t lost on Nathan.

“The FBI will figure it out given some time, but we do know enough to be deeply disturbed. Someone brought this item onto the plane and took it through security without anyone noticing.”

“Some kind of new explosive device?” Jane wondered. A sinking feeling hit her as the disturbing aspects of this began to pile up.

“Could be, but I’m just as worried about someone that we trust enough to get onto Air Force One betraying the president in an attempt to kill him.”

Jane pursed her lips and ran her hand through her brown hair. It was so bad that she didn’t want to think it, but the truth was already right there in front of her.

“Someone abused their security clearance to get close enough to the president to try to kill him. Every passenger on the plane is a suspect.”

“Right.”

“Unbelievable,” Jane gasped, flopping back against her seat. The Secret Service knew to be watchful of everyone, but how were they supposed to protect the president when the very people they trusted and scrutinized the most were the ones attacking him? What if the vice president plotted to kill the president, or a member of his staff? How were they supposed to stop that?

She sighed and put her hand on her forehead.

“Anyway,” Nathan said. “I wanted to make sure you heard the news directly. I’m sure there’ll be more. I know you take the mission to heart.”

“We all do. That’s why we’re here,” she said.

As they cruised down the road and the imminency of the threat seemed to fade, Jane was left with amending some of the more routine aspects of her job on the fly. It was great that the president didn’t want his schedule to be disrupted because of this, and the possibility of a coordinated threat following him appeared nonexistent, they didn’t want to take any chances.

So when they arrived at the county courthouse in Dayton, the place was covered in agents and everyone else had been searched or evacuated. It made what they did at the nightclub look like a free-for-all.

Jane found herself sitting on a bench under a tree across the street from the scene, wondering how taking advantage of a happenstance opportunity to travel along with the president had nearly gotten her killed. She spotted Bethany Morrin and her lawyer approaching her direction as they prepared to cross over to the courthouse. Jane tried not to pay her any mind, but she could tell she’d drawn the woman’s attention.

“I’m not surprised you’re here,” she said as she approached the nearby crosswalk and waited for traffic to stop. Jane felt blindsided by the comment.

“And what is that supposed to mean?” Jane asked out of sheer bewilderment.

“Just had to see for yourself that the deed was done,” she said, stepping into the cleared street.

It was a good thing Bethany was leaving, because Jane didn’t know what she would’ve said next. She couldn’t fathom what would be going through a woman’s mind on the day a judge terminated her eighteen-year relationship, but the idea that Jane was here to pick up the scraps and take her place was ludicrous. Or at least Jane told herself it was.

Things only got worse as Bethany brushed off the agents trying to search her. Odds of her concealing a weapon under that sundress were low, but the way she swatted at an agent’s hand as he tried to use a metal-detecting wand made Jane cringe.

For Alex’s sake, she hoped Bethany wouldn’t be so combative once the hearing had begun.

Alone and unsettled after that caustic exchange, Jane was forced to turn her attention to other repercussions of the day’s startling events. While Marine One was already en route to pick up the president, she had to arrange getting the rest of them back on commercial flights. Using these vouchers was always such a pain, and the next flight wasn’t leaving until nearly 6 PM.

As much as an afternoon exploring the sights of beautiful Dayton with the guys might’ve been nice, she knew that it was a surety they’d be hunkered down somewhere keeping tabs on the investigation reports and any updates from the president’s active detail.

The hearing took about two hours, though Jane had no clue whether that was good or not, but she heard that all issues were resolved and they would