by J. L. Brown
He displayed mock surprise. “You have one?”
Jade smiled. “How’s your son?”
“I’m proud of him. He’s the lead in his school’s musical.”
She turned to the president who reached for one of the pens that her body woman, Sarah, had placed on the table.
After signing the document with a flourish, Fairchild beckoned Brennan, Jade, and the young woman who had spoken to join her. The president held out her hand, palm down, and looked at Jade. As a former athlete, Jade needed no instruction about what to do next. She placed her hand on top of the president’s. The young woman placed her hand, the scars faint but still noticeable, on top of Jade’s. Cole Brennan laid his beefy hand on top. The four of them held this position and smiled, as cameras from the White House press corps clicked away and saved the moment for posterity.
Afterward, Jade leaned close to the president. “May we talk privately? It’s about the offer. I have an answer for you.”
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-SEVEN
Washington, DC
Over the raised beer mugs, she scanned their faces: Christian, Amanda, Pat, Max, Micah, Blake, Dante, and his girlfriend, Laurie. Ethan couldn’t make it. His leave had started last week.
“Although it was sometimes painful,” Jade said, “we came together as a team and got it done. To the good guys!”
“To the good guys!” the agents in the group yelled.
Glasses clinked all around. At a sports bar across the street from the Bureau, they had annexed two long tables and pushed them together. The place was packed, the Wizards game on all the TVs.
On the screen, the Wizards’ big man soared for an offensive rebound and dunked the ball before returning to the floor.
“Told ya!” Christian shouted to her from the other table.
“That condo is still for sale,” she yelled back.
“Won’t need it.”
“No dancing on the table tonight, okay?”
He grinned. “I’ll try to control myself.”
As they waited for their food, the group sipped their beers and talked.
Blake leaned in to her. “I have to go out of town for a week or so. Business.” He looked around at her rowdy crew. “Maybe, we can have a quiet dinner when I get back.”
She had invited him to join them after the Rose Garden ceremony that afternoon. Now, she felt Micah, motionless, on the other side of her. Waiting for her answer.
“Maybe,” she said.
When Blake turned to talk to Max, Micah lifted his chin toward Blake. “Why is he here?”
“He’s a friend,” she said.
“I wish I had friends who looked at me like that.”
She was saved from responding, by Zoe walking through the front door. Jade smiled and waved her over.
She wasn’t alone.
What the—
Behind her sashayed Kyle Madison, whose eyes never left Jade’s.
“Look who I found standing in front of the Bureau!” Zoe raised her arms in a vee. “Surprise!”
Jade’s mouth parted. And, for some reason, her eyes landed on Dante.
“I see you’re taking the edge off just fine,” he drawled, putting his arm around Laurie and looking from Micah to Blake to Zoe and, finally, to Kyle. He laughed. “Let me count the ways.”
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-EIGHT
Washington, DC
She woke up at her customary time of five a.m. and was at her desk by seven. A high-ranking analyst from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence had just left.
A door to the Oval Office opened. Whitney looked up, surprised that there had been no knock or warning from Sean.
She stood, a premonition, overwhelming her. “Sasha, what’s wrong? Is it one of the children?”
She had left Grayson eating breakfast in the residence kitchen, so he was fine. She was scheduled to have lunch with Chandler today. Emma was back at Princeton for her junior year and studying for mid-terms.
Sasha shook her head and inclined her head toward the study. She grabbed the remote and hit the power button. The two women moved in front of the TV, although they both could have seen it perfectly from where they stood.
The channel was set to MSNBC. Rubble and smoke and ash filled the screen. The front of a building had been blown away.
“We’re looking at a picture of 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Midtown Manhattan,” said the voice-over. “Ten minutes ago, we received reports of a loud explosion. As you can see, it’s utter chaos.”
The camera cut to people running away from the building, most of them blanketed in gray ash. Some were limping. Some, bleeding. A mother ran with her daughter in her arms, the toddler’s pink dress, a sharp contrast with the gray.
Whitney would not be having lunch with her son today.
“Why didn’t we foresee this?” she said.
“I don’t know.”
Whitney moved to the desk and pressed the Intercom button on the phone. “Sean, get the ODNI guy back in here. Now!”
She disconnected and returned to stand next to Sasha. They watched the report in silence for several minutes.
“Sasha,” she said, still looking at the television, “you asked me once whether I had something to tell you about the time I lived with my aunt.”
“Yes, Madam President.”
“I need to tell you something. About Landon Phillips.”
Sarah materialized next to Sasha. She, too, stared at the screen in shock before addressing Whitney. “Madam President.”
“Sarah, what is it? Sasha and I are in the middle of something.”
“It’s Blake.”
“Tell him to come here ASAP. We should start working on a statement.”
“I can’t.”
“For God’s sakes, Sarah, get him in here. Now!”
“I can’t, Madam President. He’s not here.”
“Where is he?” Whitney snapped.
Sarah’s finger shook as she pointed at the screen. “He’s there.”
*
“My fellow Americans, today was a dark day in our nation’s history. In New York City, a suicide bomber walked into the Lower Plaza at the center of the Rockefeller complex and not only took his own life, but killed and injured dozens of innocent people.
“Twenty-seven people were killed and another forty-five injured, five of them in critical condition. This was a terrorist attack. And mark my words, I will use all the powers vested in me and the United States government to track down and bring to justice any other individuals responsible for this heinous attack.
“Members of the press, Blake Haynes, our White House press secretary, stands here every day informing you of events, answering your questions, and speaking for me.” Whitney paused. “This morning, he was at MSNBC giving an interview on my behalf about the recent passage of historic legislation: The New New Deal Coalition Act and the Federal Anti-Bullying Act. Blake was critically injured in today’s attack.” She swallowed. “I ask you to pray for him, and for everyone else who was injured or who lost their lives today at Rockefeller Center Plaza. Pray for their families.”
She blamed herself.
He was at the MSNBC studio because of her. His last smile haunted her. The one he gave her the last time she visited his office. She scanned the solemn faces of the reporters scribbling furiously, most of them—if not friends with Blake—at least, shared a common bond with him: love for this country, communicating what was happening within it, the need to perfect the story every day, and the jokes, pranks, and arguments along the way.
She stood at the famous podium in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room, with the presidential seal and the mock columns behind her. She wrapped up her address to the White House press corps before her, and the nation and the rest of the world through the cameras present in the rear of the room. Another set of cameras to the right of her was aimed at the press, normally ready to capture an aggressive reporter who asked a tough question.
She had insi
sted that those cameras be turned off today.
She stepped down from the dais and headed toward the door.
Sasha joined her in the hallway.
“Madam President, I need a word.”
“It’s been a long day. I’m going back to the residence. Can it wait until tomorrow?”
“I don’t think it can.”
Whitney stopped. “What is it?”
Sasha touched her arm and guided her to an alcove.
“What were you going to tell me about Landon Phillips?”
“It can wait. What’s so important?”
“It’s Blake.”
Whitney felt the blood drain from her face. “He’s not—”
Sasha squeezed Whitney’s hand, her grip strong and reassuring. “He’s still alive, but he’s in bad shape.”
“I wish there were something I could do.”
“Maybe, you can.”
Whitney looked at her sharply. “What? Anything. My resources are at his disposal.”
“Blake needs a blood transfusion.”
“Okay.”
“He has a rare blood type that is only shared by two percent of the Caucasian population.” Sasha hesitated. “It doesn’t match either of his parents’ types or his siblings’.”
“What can we do for him? Can we find a matching donor quickly?”
“We’ve located two people with a matching blood type.”
“Sasha, what are you waiting for? We can fly one of them or his or her blood to New York. At my personal expense. Do whatever it takes.” She exhaled, trying to calm herself. “Who are they?”
Her chief of staff stared into her eyes.
“One is a state legislator in Missouri. The other is you, Madam President.”
Epilogue
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - One Month Later
“These are the times that try men’s souls.”
Thus began the 240th meeting.
Those famous words kicked off every meeting. The Paine Society, or The Society, as most of its members called it, met in person once a year at an undisclosed location.
A US-based secret group of like-minded individuals, The Society was founded by Thomas Paine in 1776. A founding father and the author of Common Sense and The Age of Reason, Paine was also the intellectual forefather to liberals, feminists, and progressives. An offshoot of the Illuminati, it was rumored that the two groups had partnered together to start the French revolution.
The Society’s mission was to create a progressive new order. Its current objectives, based on Paine’s writings and beliefs, were to:
Remedy the evils of poverty, illiteracy, and unemployment
Provide education, a living wage, relief for the poor, pensions for the elderly, and work for the unemployed
Promote liberty, tolerance, community, and social progress
Like most secret organizations, The Society had its rituals, symbols, and passwords. Though every member used an alias, their true identities were not a secret from one another. The current leader glanced out at the ninety-eight members—and one other—seated in chairs throughout the great hall. In the front row sat Franklin, Jefferson (who hated the name, complaining “Might as well call me ‘The Farmer.’”), Washington, and Hamilton, who oversaw The Society’s finances. The leader also spotted Dickinson, Marshall, and Adams.
“First,” Paine continued, “I wish to thank Adams for her service over the last year. Your plan was brilliant. Your execution flawless.”
Adams raised a hand to her heart and bowed her head slightly at the praise. She would be quick to point out that her alias was based on Samuel, not John.
Although Adams had received a degree in poli sci at Stanford and a master’s degree in public policy from Duke, she had also always loved to take things apart and put them back together. She had done that with her first computer in high school. Always up to mischief, she broke into her friends’ AOL accounts and IM’ed crazy stuff to their girlfriends. A gifted hacker, she ventured on the dark side for a time, but then decided to use her skills for good. For social change. She referred to herself as a “white hat, with shades of gray.”
It had been Adams’s idea to form the Equality One Foundation. The mission of the organization was real: to provide jobs and homes for those who needed them. The source of revenue, donations and gifts from wealthy progressives and liberals, was real as well. The foundation was also used, however, as the vehicle to appropriate one percent of the revenues of conservative companies and foundations and those who supported them and redistribute that money to people in need. The targets each had more wealth than could be spent in a lifetime. It was money they wouldn’t miss.
It was also her idea to initially steal from progressive Seattle corporations to throw off the scent for conservative conspiracy theorists.
Hamilton had suggested recruiting Noah Blakeley to be its chairman and then, eventually, president.
The leader thought of Noah Blakeley. While, regrettably, he would be spending the rest of his life in jail, sometimes a life had to be sacrificed for the greater good.
He wasn’t, and wouldn’t be, the only sacrifice.
Congressman Steven Barrett’s death hadn’t been an accident.
And Landon Phillips didn’t kill him.
The airplane manifest had been altered. The driver’s license fabricated to point law enforcement to the desired conclusion. Franklin had seen to it that the FBI’s investigation into the death of Representative Barrett had been buried.
“But this was a team effort,” the leader continued.
Supervisory Special Agent Ethan Lawson was a good man. His career wasn’t over, just on hiatus. The leader nodded to Franklin, who had leaked the information on the TSK and cybertheft cases to Dickinson, the recipient of those leaks.
The leader stood and raised a chalice of wine to the group.
“To duty!”
“To duty!” ninety-eight voices responded.
“To preserve and protect our democracy.”
“To preserve and protect our democracy,” they repeated.
The leader took a sip of wine, and then beckoned to someone in the front row.
“And now, I’d like to welcome the newest member of The Paine Society. May I introduce Madison?”
As the other members clapped, the inductee stepped forward until he stood before her. Madison had been successful so far in deterring the FBI from pursuing the Noah Blakeley case any further.
The case needed to be closed.
The handsome man smiled, his mesmerizing gray eyes never leaving the leader’s, as he slowly unbuttoned his shirt. He held it open to reveal the new tattoo he had received that morning, on the left side of his chiseled chest.
The End
About the Author
J. L. Brown is the author of the Jade Harrington novels, Don’t Speak, Rule of Law, and The Divide, and the short story, Few Are Chosen. J. L. lives with her family in Seattle, Washington, where she is hard at work writing her next novel.
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Thank you for reading, Rule of Law.
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to:
My magnificent editors: Jim Thomsen and Christina Tinling.
My sons, Travis and Brandon, for their support and my daughter, Jaz, for her support and Jazisms.
My cat and the king of our household, Fitzgerald.
My mother, Julia, who bestowed on me the love of reading and, when
I was a child, took me on weekly trips to the library.
My amazing wife, manager, and editor, Audi, who was with me through every page.
And last, but not least, to the readers of Don’t Speak. For an author, releasing your baby to the world, especially your first, is a scary thing. I have been overwhelmed and honored by the positive reaction to the story and to Jade. Thank you for sharing the word about Don’t Speak.
Where it all began . . .
ISBN 978-0-9969772-1-0 (paperback)
ISBN 978-0-9969772-0-3 (ebook)