The Senator

by Ken Fite

  THE SENATOR

  A Blake Jordan Thriller

  Ken Fite

  The Blake Jordan Series

  The Senator: Blake Jordan Book 1

  Credible Threat: Blake Jordan Book 2

  In Plain Sight: Blake Jordan Book 3

  Rules of Engagement: Blake Jordan Book 4

  April 2016

  Copyright © 2016 Ken Fite

  All rights reserved worldwide.

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THIRTY-SIX

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  THIRTY-NINE

  FORTY

  FORTY-ONE

  FORTY-TWO

  FORTY-THREE

  FORTY-FOUR

  FORTY-FIVE

  FORTY-SIX

  FORTY-SEVEN

  FORTY-EIGHT

  FORTY-NINE

  FIFTY

  FIFTY-ONE

  FIFTY-TWO

  FIFTY-THREE

  FIFTY-FOUR

  FIFTY-FIVE

  FIFTY-SIX

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  FIFTY-NINE

  SIXTY

  SIXTY-ONE

  SIXTY-TWO

  SIXTY-THREE

  SIXTY-FOUR

  SIXTY-FIVE

  SIXTY-SIX

  SIXTY-SEVEN

  SIXTY-EIGHT

  SIXTY-NINE

  SEVENTY

  SEVENTY-ONE

  SEVENTY-TWO

  SEVENTY-THREE

  SEVENTY-FOUR

  SEVENTY-FIVE

  SEVENTY-SIX

  SEVENTY-SEVEN

  SEVENTY-EIGHT

  SEVENTY-NINE

  EIGHTY

  EIGHTY-ONE

  EIGHTY-TWO

  EIGHTY-THREE

  EIGHTY-FOUR

  EIGHTY-FIVE

  EIGHTY-SIX

  EIGHTY-SEVEN

  EIGHTY-EIGHT

  EIGHTY-NINE

  NINETY

  Find out what happens to Blake.

  PROLOGUE

  SENATOR JAMES KELLER flipped up the collar to his white dress shirt and adjusted his signature blue tie. While looking in the mirror, he felt the presence of someone behind him. The senator turned around and found his wife, Margaret, smiling as she watched him getting ready from the doorway to their bedroom.

  “Hi, sweetheart,” Keller said, and walked over to his wife and gave her a kiss on the cheek. Margaret reached up from where she was sitting, grabbed his tie, and fixed the crooked knot before pulling it tight.

  “Are you feeling any better?”

  “About the same,” she whispered, finding it difficult to put words together. “I’m sorry I can’t…”

  “Don’t be sorry,” Keller said and knelt down so he could look his wife in the eyes. “I understand.”

  “Mrs. Keller?” a woman called out from the hallway and quickly approached the couple. Nurse Cheryl, as Margaret Keller called her, had been providing around-the-clock care to the senator’s wife for over a year. When the senator learned that she’d been diagnosed with Parkinson’s, he told his wife he’d leave the Senate so he could spend more time with her. He even wrote a letter of resignation that same night.

  But Margaret was adamant that her husband not leave just because of her. The couple, who had been married for thirty-two years, rarely fought, but the afternoon they returned to their home in the Chicago suburbs, confused and worried about the doctor’s diagnosis, emotions couldn’t be held back.

  The senator woke up early the next morning and couldn’t find the resignation letter—or his wife. He finally found Margaret at the kitchen table with two steaming cups of coffee, wanting to talk. She explained that she’d taken the letter and promised to give it back when she needed him at her side.

  That was two years ago. When Nurse Cheryl arrived at the doorway to their bedroom, she offered a smile.

  “Mrs. Keller, dinner is ready, and I have the TV all set for you—we can watch together.”

  The senator and his wife embraced while he was still knelt down next to her wheelchair, which Nurse Cheryl held onto. The wheelchair was new. A precaution. Margaret’s illness was progressing, and her nurse thought it could help.

  “You look beautiful, sweetie,” Keller said as he stood and grabbed his suit jacket and smiled a gentle smile to his wife. She reached into the pocket of the robe she had draped over a blouse and slowly extended her hand to her husband. It shook slightly, and Keller steadied it with his left hand and took what she was offering him with his right. It was a fading Polaroid of Margaret from their first date.

  “What’s this?” the senator asked, understanding what she had given him but not why she had done it.

  “I’m sorry I can’t be there for you tonight. But put that in your jacket. Left side. Closest to your heart.”

  Senator Keller’s eyes teared up and he cleared his throat as he placed the picture inside his jacket.

  Nurse Cheryl pulled the wheelchair back. “Let’s go eat, Mrs. Keller,” who thought that was a fine idea.

  Keller left the bedroom and headed to the front of the house after he heard a knock at the door. He greeted the man and said goodbye to Margaret and Nurse Cheryl.

  “We’ll be watching you on TV,” the nurse said.

  Keller nodded and smiled after kissing his wife on the forehead and telling her that he loved her.

  “Thank you,” Margaret said to her nurse as soon as her husband left, showing her appreciation for helping her appear stronger than she really was. “I can’t remember where he’s going, please tell me again.”

  Nurse Cheryl smiled. “To accept the nomination for President of the United States.”

  ONE

  FORTY-FIVE MINUTES before midnight, Victor Perez left his apartment and walked out onto the streets of Chicago, determined to change the course of history. He boarded the Red Line and took it south to Jackson. He then took the Blue Line to the Medical District and walked the rest of the way to work.

  It was cooler than usual in late August with temps in the upper fifties. At midnight, this was not an area where you’d want to find yourself walking the streets of Chicago alone. There were cars that drove the streets slowly like they were casing one of the houses on Jackson or Adams.

  It wasn’t much farther after the Blue Line. He walked his usual route, taking West Van Buren to Damen, where he hung a right at Malcolm X College. It was only three blocks north to get to West Monroe, where he worked as a janitor on the overnight crew at the United Center.

  He headed to the side entrance to the building where the Bulls and Blackhawks would be playing in another month or so. Right now, the arena was being used for concerts and conventions.

  With a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, Victor Perez walked up and shook hands with some of the men who were scheduled to work that night.

  He only had to break into the building once, his first night on the
job. He watched the crew for a week from a building across the street and noticed that every night just before midnight, the men would gather at the side entrance for a smoke before starting their overnight shifts.

  It was that first night after the men took their last drags and headed inside to start work that Perez broke in to the United Center. He had schematics of the building, so he knew every room on every level before he ever stepped inside. Breaking in was the easy part. He’d been trained for this kind of thing.

  He found a janitor’s uniform in the mechanical room and got to work. It didn’t take long for him to fit right in and make friends with the overnight crew. They all thought he was just the new guy.

  At midnight, Perez and the other crewmembers headed inside and each went their separate ways.

  Perez went back to the executive suite. He knew that in less than twenty-four hours, the now empty suite would be swarming with federal agents looking for him, or at least who the crew thought he was.

  He opened the door to the suite and moved a leather couch he had positioned against a wall opposite the entrance, where he was hiding a large grate made to look like an air return. Perez tugged on the grate, and as it detached, it revealed a large hole in the wall, big enough for him to crawl through with ease.

  Perez placed a duffle bag in the space in the wall, crawled inside, and replaced the grate.

  As he made himself comfortable, he thought through his plan one more time. He thought about the van parked behind the building. He saw it was still there when he walked up. He checked his duffle bag and confirmed he had the chloroform, the duct tape, and his Beretta with plenty of ammunition. Then he thought about his escape route. Perez imagined himself driving the exact path he planned to take once he left the building. Everything was in order. He was set. Perez closed his eyes and rested while he had the chance. In exactly twenty hours, he’d be the most wanted man in America.

  TWO

  MY NAME IS Blake Jordan, special agent in charge of the DDC Chicago field office. I arrived at the United Center around seven o’clock with my partner, Jami Davis. She was new to the Department of Domestic Counterterrorism. An FBI reject—that was why I hired her. While I appreciated what the FBI did, DDC held a special role in counterterrorism that no other government agency could fill. As a spinoff from the CIA, which we refer to as Base, DDC was tasked with focusing only on preventing terrorist events domestically.

  While I was new to the job, the work was old hat to me. And tonight’s operation was no exception.

  We had sent an advance team to the Center earlier in the day to secure the backstage, entrance, and exit areas for the convention. Secret Service protection hadn’t been requested by any of the presidential candidates over the last year. Each one had their own security team, which mainly consisted of a few bodyguards. Even now, this late into the campaign, the party’s nominee didn’t want Secret Service protection. Instead, he asked for DDC protection. Mainly because I knew the man.

  Around seven thirty in the evening, Senator Jim Keller arrived. I met him at the side entrance to the Center along with Jami, who I had assigned to work security on behalf of DDC.

  “Blake, how are you?” the senator asked as he walked into the small understated lobby of the Center.

  “Senator, great to see you, sir,” I said as we shook hands and put an arm around each other.

  “How are you holding up?”

  “Just fine,” I answered. But the truth was, I wasn’t fine. I still hadn’t gotten over the loss of my wife, Maria, over the summer. Living through that experience was the hardest thing I’d ever been through.

  “You’re lying,” the senator said, pointing a finger at my chest before putting a hand on my shoulder.

  “This is Agent Jami Davis.” I introduced the two and explained, “We’ll be your protection tonight.”

  “Good. Just don’t keep me from the people. That’s why I didn’t want the damn Secret Service involved yet. After tonight, they can do whatever they want.”

  I glanced at Jami and nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  I had two other agents stationed at the side entrance where we were talking. We left them and made our way to the service elevator and took it up to the third level. As we exited, I showed the senator to the executive suite, where he could relax for a few minutes.

  “Nice view,” the senator said as he admired the panoramic view of the delegates from his party at the convention from his own private green room.

  Senator Keller lived in Chicago, in the same neighborhood as my father. He watched the first three days of the convention from his home for a couple of reasons. For starters, he didn’t want to deal with the security BS. He also didn’t want to steal the thunder from the up-and-comers in his party who were scheduled to speak. His running mate, Congressman Mike Billings, had been in this same suite getting ready thirty minutes earlier. He was now on the floor speaking and was set to introduce the senator at eight o’clock.

  “Do you need anything?” asked Jami.

  Keller looked at both of us and shook his head.

  “Just need you to leave me alone for a few minutes so I can go over my speech one more time.”

  I opened the door and motioned for Jami to follow.

  “Agent Davis will escort you out when you’re ready. See you downstairs.” We shook hands one more time. “You’ll make a fine president.”

  Keller smiled. I headed back to the service elevator, but Jami stopped me.

  “You didn’t tell me you knew him.”

  “He’s a family friend. I’ve known Jim Keller for over twenty years. Met him when my family moved here a year into high school. He worked with my dad.”

  “Is that why you’re here? You don’t think I can do my job, so you have to babysit me?”

  “Look, I know you’re new and want to prove yourself. I needed to be here. My call,” I said.

  We tested our earpieces and made sure we could hear each other. I left and headed down to the convention floor.

  Jami stood outside the senator’s suite. She left him alone to gather his thoughts before speaking to a crowd of just over twenty thousand delegates and supporters who had made their way to Chicago from around the country. There was a window overlooking the floor just outside the door, and Jami could hear the booming but muffled voice of Congressman Billings as he gave his speech.

  She could feel her heart beating faster. It always did in the final moments of any mission, no matter how large or small the assignment was. In fifteen minutes, Senator James Keller would receive his party’s nomination for President of the United States.

  THREE

  DAVID MITCHELL ARRIVED at the United Center a few minutes before eight o’clock. This was his second attempt at trying to get into the arena. The first try was on Tuesday, the second day of the convention.

  Mitchell hadn’t worked at the Chicago Tribune in over a year. A former colleague had spotted him and alerted security, who escorted the man out of the building. He used his old Tribune press pass to get through security and managed to stay through most of the second day of the RNC before being kicked out.

  The man was tall with dark, slicked-back hair that he hid underneath a baseball cap most of the time. But, tonight, David Mitchell wore a suit and tie to try to blend in with the other reporters at the Center.

  He’d been fired last summer after embellishing many of the stories that he wrote. The interesting thing was that David Mitchell was a brilliant writer and a master storyteller. His pieces were fascinating to read on their own and didn’t need embellishment. It started out small, but over time, Mitchell got cocky and was eventually exposed.

  After David Mitchell lost his job, he started his own website. A cross between HuffPo and the Drudge Report. It became a huge success after he exposed the rampant crony capitalism between many Chicago-area businesses and government officials. Now he had something on Congressman Billings and was hoping to find a way to confront him. It didn’t take much these days to get a po
litician talking and then use the audio against them to sway the public’s opinion. That seemed to be the playbook to go by these days if you wanted to keep the other party from getting into office.

  Mitchell walked up to the front entrance of the United Center. Being the fourth and final night of the convention, just minutes before Senator Keller would be speaking, he knew this would be his best shot at getting in to catch up with Billings as he got off stage while all eyes would be on Keller.

  David Mitchell approached security and presented his credentials. He noticed it was different personnel than had escorted him out of the building two nights prior.

  “Press pass?” asked a man with SECURITY written in white across the black shirt he wore. A second man stood next to him, arms crossed, looking Mitchell over. Both men were off-duty police officers working the event to make a few extra bucks.

  “I’m with the Tribune,” Mitchell said as he handed over the press pass. He spoke confidently. Although the credentials were no longer valid, they weren’t counterfeit, which he thought would be the first thing security would be looking for.

  He also knew from prior experience that being confident could get you a long way and take you down paths where you didn’t really belong. He once walked right past security to watch a Cubs game at Wrigley Field by wearing dark sunglasses, pretending to be talking on a cell phone, and wearing a lanyard with a Cubs logo on it—just for the thrill of doing it. And for the practice.

  The off-duty cop inspected the press pass for a few seconds and asked Mitchell for his driver’s license. The other officer stepped away and spoke into a walkie-talkie. Just as the first officer was handing the press pass and license back to Mitchell and about to let him through, the second cop returned.

  “I don’t think so,” he said.

  “What’s the problem?” Mitchell asked, feigning ignorance.

  “I recognized your name. You’re David Mitchell and you don’t work at the Tribune. You were escorted out on Tuesday.” Mitchell grabbed his license, but the first officer held onto the press pass.

  “Look, I work for myself now. I run a news website that gets even more traffic than the Tribune. I deserve to be here.”