Madam President ✓

25. We're So Close

If he was behind this... it would... it would almost be too obvious.

Almost.

The realization hits me like a ton of bricks.

He is the perfect cover up for somebody bigger, higher on the chain. I know if I vocalize this theory it'll get brushed aside..... so I don't, but it lingers as I wait what feels like hours for a call from Jeremy. When his ID pops up on my phone along with the nearly silent ringtone, I'm expecting it.

"Hello?" I pick up immediately.

"Office. Now. You need to see this."

He hangs up, knowing he doesn't have to tell me twice. But the entire time I'm driving back to headquarters again, all I can think about is finding him dead when I get there. I wish his office had security cameras, but that was another thing he negotiated with the United States government five years ago: he would hack whatever they asked him to hack- so long as they didn't watch him do it or ask for his methods. According to Amber, his exact words were:

"I'll tell them how I did it when I'm dead."

I wouldn't put it past the United States to slowly poison him overtime so he gets sicker and sicker to eventually break him and the kill him right after- but I'm hopeful the current administration wouldn't pull something like that.

Then for the first time ever, I run into a parking block. I mumble more curse words under my breath, but I don't check to see if there's damage to the car. FBI ones are just a step below the secret service vehicles- and those ones are indestructible, to the point destroying them once they're done using became a real issue.

A few years ago, an agent I met while working on an assassination investigation told me they started just removing the things on the inside and outside that scream "SECRET SERVICE" and giving them the Representatives, senators, and members of the cabinet for free. It gave them some peace of mind, apparently- to know that they had safe transportation even though the above mentioned members of government didn't fall under secret service protection.

After today's events, I would be surprised if the agency doesn't add them to list of people qualified for protection details.

I tap my foot impatiently on the elevator. When you're really trying to go somewhere and make sure the only person you trust isn't dead, the thing is fucking slow. I nearly run out of it and slam into an agent who works in the pit.

"Jesus-"

"Move!!" I don't have time to be nice right now, to even say excuse me. Every second is another opportunity for the youngest hacker in the FBI at the moment to be killed.

I bang on his door. On the other side, I hear a few steps forward and then a pause.

When he opens the door and lets me in, I see he's managed to drill a peephole in his door- about seven feet up where the majority of people wouldn't notice.

"What?" I ask, out of breath."What happened?"

"Just.... Look." He presses play on what looks like security camera footage.

"Where is this?"

"Rogers's house for when Congress was in session on the outskirts of D.C." He says. "Now hush."

For a few seconds there's nothing but chirping birds, wind rustling the leaves, and creaking on his porch.

Creaking on his porch....

A pair of feet appear in the left of the screen, making their way to his front door. I slowly follow them upwards and recognize the person around the time I get to their neck; the speaker of the house.

Okay. Nothing off yet- it's pretty common for members of Congress to visit each other in non-formal settings.

She rings the doorbell. From inside his old dog barks- I remember the news headlines about it dying a few weeks ago, and he opens it but steps outside.

At this point, the speaker looks right at the camera. So she knows it's there- and the look of terror in her eyes is stronger than any I've ever seen, with the exception of her own when I watched the life drain from her eyes.

I hold my breath to the point my lungs physically hurt, not wanting to miss a word.

"Madam Speaker-" The smile on his face is one of the literal devil. "It is a pleasure to see you."

"The hell it is-" she tilts her chin upwards, clearly pissed. And she clearly has balls too, as is evident by her next few statements. "Fred, you know I can't just... not report this. What you've been compliant in is just... fucked."

The key word registers before anything else: Compliant.

He did not act alone- we already knew that, but how do I connect him to Leslie Simmons?

"That's your own Damn fault for walking in on the conversation." He chuckles. "Unless you want your precious Congress and your entire family to die sooner, you'll keep your mouth shut."

"You can't just do this, I could-"

"You could tell the police? Please, the first thing they'd do is investigate the person who tells them that sort of thing. But you didn't think about that, did you? Or when-" I pause the video. I've heard all I need to.

"Jeremy...." I clear my throat. "His D.C residence. Is he there now?"

"Let's find out."

He cracks his neck and begins typing strings of code that, from my understanding- will give us live access to the indoor cameras.