In the beginning, she was reluctant about being partnered with Jake. Her first impression was that he was impulsive and audacious. Soon, she realized Wiley knew what he was doing.
She put the picture back on Makley's desk. "Let's get down to business, Mr. Makley. Show me what you have."
She spent the next thirty minutes scouring through the data Makley had given her. She read the lengthy email three times looking for any indication of where the email originated. "You know, this could be a hoax." She had moved a chair next to his while he walked her through the collected data.
"I don't think so," he reasoned. "It's written with a very clear message. Whoever wrote this knows something we don't."
"I disagree. The only thing I can ascertain from the writing is that whoever sent it is not young…or at least is trying hard not to sound that way."
"Now you see why I felt I needed to call Abigail Love. I needed a tight-lipped investigation. I couldn't let the President find out. Therefore, I couldn't call the Secret Service or FBI. I had to handle this myself…in case it had validity."
Francesca stood. "No. Abigail Love is an assassin. You should have gotten the authorities involved. If this is true, then there is nothing you or anybody else can do to protect the President."
Makley stood next to her. "I won't let anything happen to President Rudd. It's my job to protect her and this country."
Francesca balled up her fist and punched Makley in the face splitting his lip open. The Chief of Staff fell back into his chair and covered his bloody lip with his hand. The look in his eyes showed a combination of confusion and anger, but she didn't care. She grabbed the arms of the chair and leaned close to his face. "You ordered Abigail Love to kill my partner. You better hope like Hell she receives your retraction because if anything happens to him, I'll personally see to it you never make it to the inside of a jail cell."
She stood back, letting her words sink in.
Makley pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the blood from his lip.
"You said you'd do anything to protect the President, well, I'll do anything to protect my partner. And if that means killing a treasonous bastard like you, then so be it." She pointed to a chair against a far wall. "Get up and sit over there while I let an expert track down this email."
While he sat, Francesca logged into the Commonwealth Consultants secure portal, entered her 24-digit password, and waited. Her cell phone rang. "Voice activation authorization India, Tango, Alpha, Lima, Yankee, Five, Echo, Whiskey." She selected her own code for voice recognition. Letters spelling her home country — Italy, she was the fifth emissary, and her employer's initials, Elmore Wiley. She thought it was a clever selection. I-T-A-L-Y-5-E-W. She waited until a familiar voice picked up. "Hi, George."
She explained the situation to Fontaine and then an authorization box appeared on Makley's computer screen. She clicked on the box and sat back. She watched the cursor move as Fontaine took control of Makley's computer.
"What's going on?" Makley leaned forward, obviously trying to get a look at the monitor. "What is he doing to my computer?"
"I don't know. Way over my head." She looked at Makley. The man was the highest ranking employee in the White House yet he looked like a schoolboy who had been put in time-out.
Twenty minutes later the monitor flickered and her cell phone rang. She answered the call, "Go."
"Give Mr. Mackley his computer back," Fontaine said, "I've got all I need. He can't do anything without us knowing about it, and the same goes for Abigail Love. I found her tracer and located her server. It was embedded in the code she had him install. It sends all his received emails to her server. From there they run a—"
"George."
"What?" Fontaine said.
"I don't care. All that I.T. stuff, I don't need to know how it works. I don't want to know how it works. Just find who sent the email and let me know. Okay?"
"Heard anything from Jake?" Fontaine asked.
"Nothing since Wiley split us up."
"He's not in any kind of danger, is he?"
She glared at Makley and spoke loud enough for him to hear. "He better not be in any danger or President Rudd will be looking for a new Chief of Staff."
Abigail Love had been following the man since she saw him at the Pizza Place near the marina. He was driving a white Tahoe. After he left the diner, he met an elderly woman at the Butler Museum. Love strategically parked where she would be able to see him come out without being noticed.
She figured if she followed the man, whom she now knew was named Jake Pendleton, he would lead her to the woman. The woman would lead her to the book.
After Pendleton had been in the museum almost an hour, she received a puzzling message from Evan Makley.
Cancel Kill On Jake Pendleton
In her past experiences with Evan Makley she learned he was not a man who often had a change of heart. Usually when he made a decision — good or bad — he stuck to it. Maybe something had happened. Something she should know about. If that was the case, then he should have sent a 9-1-1 through the lovesdesperatedesire.com website. She tried to log on with her cell phone. Nothing. Her server was down.
Her Gmail account was Makley's backup. She told him never to send an email from the account, only edit the one in the DRAFTS folder. She gave him the username and password along with detailed instructions for its use in the event normal channels of communication were unavailable or imperiled. She logged into the Gmail account and located the message.
We have been compromised and you have been identified. Your server has been shut down and your assets confiscated. DO NOT RETURN TO D.C.
Damn you, Makley. Her first reaction was to abort the mission. She hated failure. She mulled over her options and came to the conclusion that obtaining the book and keeping it for herself was her best plan. If anyone got in her way after she had acquired the book, she would kill them. And that included the handsome Jake Pendleton.
Makley's use of the word 'We' infuriated her. He was the one that compromised her. The son of a bitch was stupid and had become a liability. One she needed to deal with. Nothing would give her more pleasure, she mused, than to show up at his apartment under the pretense of her first visit, something the horny bastard would no doubt relish, put him in a sexually compromising position, and then kill him.
Not a quick, painless death, but a slow and agonizing one. She envisioned cuffing him to the bedposts again, gagging him, and then taking her razor sharp knife to his genitals. After he had suffered enough, she would put a round in his head with her Smith & Wesson.
One round.
Right between the eyes.
As much as she'd like to handle this one herself, she was 400 miles away and there was no time to waste. She opened her phone and searched through her contacts until she located the number for her best escort. She placed the call.
As soon as she hung up, Pendleton and the old woman came out of the museum. The woman locked the door to the museum and Pendleton walked her to her car, shook her hand, and waited until she drove off. Then he climbed inside the Tahoe and drove off.
Love pulled out, keeping a safe distance. There was still a lot of traffic on these backcountry roads at night, which worked to her advantage. She stayed back letting the occasional car or truck pull between them. She checked her GPS, which showed she had followed him all the way around to the other side of the lake from the town of Butler.
She saw the Tahoe's left blinker flash and the SUV turned off the main road at a mailbox. She slowed but kept driving noting that he pulled into a cabin with a short driveway. She saw lights reflecting across the water behind the house. She logged the location on her GPS, turned around a half a mile down the road at the next driveway, and drove back toward town.