Covert Coffee (The Serena Wilcox Dystopian Trilogy Book 2)

Covert Coffee Chapter 1

1

President Kinji tucked her hair behind her ears, a fruitless gesture since her signature bob was cut too short for hair to stay tucked over her ear lobes. She picked up a pencil and began chewing on the eraser, something she hadn't done since she was a child.  Completely unaware of what she was doing, or the stunned looks on her staff’s faces, she gnawed at the eraser until there was nothing left of it. Then she tossed the pencil back on the desk and formulated her thoughts. Finally, she spoke.

“So who’s getting Serena out of there?” she asked. It was unclear who she was addressing, so no one answered. Ann made eye contact with each of the five young people in the room. “Get me someone.”

No one moved.

Ann said, “Get me my husband.”

Everyone moved.

Ann surveyed the now-empty Oval Office. Could it be called Oval? The room had been built like a giant ice cube. She hated it. Hated, hated, hated it. She hated everything inside the walls of the closed society known as the new White House: the walls of ivory, beige, cream, tan, sand, caramel and “linen”; the soaring modern-day-architectural cathedral ceilings that created a chill not unlike the dreary drafts felt by monks in centuries-old monasteries, but without the ethereal air; the gaudy display of wealth represented by insanely priced presidential pens and an office chair with hand-sewn upholstery worth $10,000; and most of all, the plastic people holding her sequestered in this prison.

What kept her sane were the regular coffee chats with her dear friend Serena Wilcox, someone who didn’t have a political bone in her body. Half the time, she didn’t even watch the news. She was outside of the fray, untainted by the dirty fingers of lobbyists and power-hungry star-climbers. She was a pure outsider to “The Cube”. Best of all, she was delightfully funny, unconventional, witty, and genuine. Ann had pushed hard for the friendship with Serena, as if Serena were a pet she adopted; needy and odd behavior coming from Ann, not Presidential in the slightest.

And now Ann had potentially killed her new pet. Too much affection can do that.

“It’s not your fault,” said Ted.

Ann moved away from her desk, where she had been glowering at a stack of ridiculously overpriced notepads. She had requested notepads due to her love-hate relationship with computerized planners and her lack of trust in any staffer to record her thoughts for her. Nonetheless, she despised the notepads. She could be using scratch paper like her Mom used to keep in the kitchen drawer by the phone – no need for her scribbles to take on such formality. Waste. No wonder the country was in such a mess.

“You have to know that you had nothing to do with this,” Ted tried again.

“You and I both know that if she was not a personal friend of the President, she wouldn’t be in this situation.”

Ted shrugged with the resignation that all long-time-married men know, and said something wise that few men would realize to be the best answer for this situation and many others: “What do you want me to say?”

Ann mirrored Ted’s shrugging and said, “I don’t know. But while we stand here talking, Serena could be dead.”

“We know the threat is credible?” asked Ted.

“I spoke to her myself. It came from Serena’s own lips. Yes, credible.”

Ted whistled; a low steady tone he had rehearsed to perfection.

Ann cringed. His “whistle of drama” got under her skin. She cracked every knuckle on both of her hands. Then Ted promptly did the same. We’ve been married too long, she thought. She smiled.

“What? You have an idea?”

“No,” said Ann, “Just thinking that I’m glad you are here.”

“Me too. Is her husband with her?”

“I don’t know. Tom and the kids were with her, but he was there for business. He could have been at work. The kids were probably with her though. I don’t know anything, just guessing.”

“What business does he have in Germany?”

“He works civil service now. He’s there as support to a Guard unit that’s over there on a routine two-week annual deployment.”

“We’re still doing that? Even with the bases over there closed?”

“Not all are closed. And yes, we are still doing that. Serena went with him to vacation, to show the kids all the famous hot spots in Europe.”

“Any reason to suspect this is about what Tom is doing?”

“No, this is all me. Remember my driver Penny?”

“The one who wants to be a lawyer?”

“Yes. She sent me an e-mail right before this happened. She wanted to talk to someone I could trust, someone outside of The Cube.”

“And you told her to talk to Serena?”

“Yes.”

“Ah, I see.”

“What is taking them so long?” Ann glanced at the mammoth screen on the wall: no new activity.  She stared at it for a few seconds, willing it with her mind to change. And it did. She and Ted raced to the center of the sensor range. Ted gestured for the menu to appear.

They read the simple message from Agent Donnelly: <<Bluebird flown. Nothing there.>>

Ann raised two fingers in the air to signal the teleconferencing function. She raised her voice even though it was sufficient to speak in normal conversational tones; she just couldn’t quite get used to not having a phone at her ear while speaking over a connection. “Agent Donnelly, you there?”

“Yes, Madam President.”

“She’s gone then? What about her husband? The kids?”

“He is with us now, and the kids.”

“Where were they? They weren’t with Serena?”

“They were at the library.”

“On the base?”

“Yes.”

“So Serena was alone then? They got her at home?”

“Yes and yes. No trace. Sorry, Madam President.”

“Nothing at all?”

“They are sweeping the apartment now, but they aren’t optimistic.”

“I understand.” Ann looked at Ted’s face for any sign that he had an idea of what to do next. He didn’t. After a long pause she resumed conversation. “Stay with Tom and the kids. Let me know if anything happens.”

“Yes, Madam President.”

“And Agent Donnelly?”

“Yes?”

“This is covert – me, you, Ted, and your team. That’s it. Got it?”

“Yes, Madam President.”

“Donnelly, your team is need-to-know.”

“Understood.”

“Follow protocol, but report to no one but me for now.”

“We have a name for this operation?”

          “Call it Covert Coffee.”