Covert Coffee (The Serena Wilcox Dystopian Trilogy Book 2)

Covert Coffee Chapter 8

8

Ted was being watched. He could feel it. He felt it when he was awake; he felt it when he was trying to sleep. At night he tossed and turned so much that Ann had asked him on more than one occasion what his problem was. He wished he could tell her. He hated lying to his wife, who was also the President of his country. It was also hard, as the First Gentleman, to find time to be alone – how did he think he could get away with something like this? But he was going to give it his best shot.

Today was the day to go for it – everything was all set up and the green light to proceed had been given. It had taken him and his confidant over 48 hours to arrange. There was no way he wanted to jump through all these hoops again tomorrow; he vowed not to screw this up. Clandestine and absurd game-play was hard for a man who had enjoyed freedom for most of his life to accept as his new normal, but he would do what he had to do.

Ted went to McDonald’s, which was not unusual. He stopped there for coffee occasionally. Sometimes he even had a Big Mac, which drew Clinton jokes from old timers from the D.C. days. Ted’s secret service detail didn’t think anything of it when his driver got into the drive-through line at a busy McDonald’s on a Saturday afternoon. They followed him, of course, but Ted had anticipated that typical course of action.

Ted’s driver ordered for Ted at the speaker – a small coffee only. They drove forward in the line. As Ted predicted would happen, the young agents in the car behind him had their mouths watered for burgers and fries. He waited until it was their turn at the speaker. When one of the agents was barking his order into the speaker Ted slipped out of his car, guessing that the agents would assume he had gone inside the restaurant to use the restroom.

Were they distracted enough by the busy drive through lane to let him go inside on his own? Ted resisted the urge to look over his shoulder. He kept moving, walking toward the restrooms. He didn’t look behind him until a family with three kids filled the door frame. One of the kids was carrying a birthday gift bag, which came as no surprise to Ted, who had chosen this precise moment to come to McDonald’s today -- the start time of a large children’s party.

The party schedule for McDonald’s was not difficult information to come by, and it was even easier than he had thought to hide himself in the chaos. The added bonus was that most of the kids and their parents were wearing paper hats that added more height and eye-clutter to the gaggle. His privacy barrier was even better than he expected!

By the time his agents drove around the other side of the building, he was already back out the same door he’d come in, where another driver was waiting for him – a driver of a non-government vehicle. Ted was confident that no one would have seen him walk back out, but he was not home free. His agents would be expecting him to come out the door near the drive through exit, where his regular driver was waiting for him, a driver who knew nothing of Ted’s plans.

They’ll go in there looking for me; I give them less than ten minutes. Probably closer to five. Ted hurried into the vehicle without drawing attention to him. He got in the back seat and reassured himself that the windows were tinted. Although it was unnecessary to do so, he couldn’t resist saying, “Go!”

His new driver eased out of the McDonald’s parking lot and into the congested street. Ted knew this area and had chosen it for its traffic patterns: fast moving, heavy flow, no traffic lights for a long stretch. As he had anticipated, the car Ted was riding in was quickly sucked into the flow, absorbed by Saturday shoppers and tourists. It was satisfying to look back and see nothing behind him that resembled a government vehicle. He was free!

And that was when his new driver pulled over, stopped, and turned around in her seat. Ted gasped. “It’s you,” he said.

“Yes, it’s me. Did you really think that I wouldn’t know that you were hiding something from me?”