his career was over. The rest of the detail looked just as anxious. None of them wanted to blow their careers up over this.
'I told you before, I will accept all responsibility.'
'But it could be a trap.'
'I will accept all responsibility.'
'But it's our job to protect you.'
'And it's my job to make decisions about my family. You can watch from the car, but you are not to leave the vehicle for any reason.'
'Ma'am, rest assured, I will leave this vehicle if I see you threatened in any way.'
'Fine. I can live with that.'
As soon as she left the car, the lead agent said, 'Shit.' Under his breath he added another word that rhymed perfectly with 'twitch.'
All faces in the two cars, including four using high-powered optics, were glued to the glass watching the First Lady cross the street and enter the shop. Unknown to Jane Cox, there were three Secret Service agents already in the shop, all dressed casually and ostensibly customers, plus two more in the rear guarding that entry. The Service was well used to dealing with high-spirited, demanding, and independent-minded First Family members.
Jane went directly to the mailbox, used her key to open it, and found nothing there. She was back in the car in under a minute.
'Drive,' she said, as she sank back against the leather.
'Ma'am,' said the detail leader. 'Is there anything we can help you with here?'
'No one can help me,' she said defiantly, but her voice broke slightly.
The ride back to the White House was made in silence. The moment the First Lady had left the White House Aaron Betack had gone into action. Under the pretense of doing a routine bug sweep of the corridor where the First Lady's office was situated, he entered her suite and asked the staff members there to step outside while the check was conducted.
It only took him a minute to go into the First Lady's inner office, pick the lock of her desk drawer, find the letter, make a copy of it, and return the original to the desk. He glanced at the contents of the paper before thrusting it in his suit pocket.
It was the first time in his government career that he'd ever done anything like that. He had in fact just committed a criminal act for which he would pull several hard years in a federal prison if he were ever caught.
Somehow, it seemed worth every minute of such a sentence.
CHAPTER 55
SEAN AND MICHELLE had spent most of the evening and much of the next day learning that collectively there were dozens of military facilities located in Georgia, Mississippi, and Alabama with hundreds of thousands of military personnel assigned to them. Too many, in fact, for that to be of much use in their investigation. They were sitting in their office when Sean had an idea. He called Chuck Waters and left a message. A few minutes later the FBI agent called back.
'The isotope exam you did on the hair sample?' Sean began.
'What about it?'
'Did it show anything else?'
'Like what?'
'I know that it can tell what your diet has been like for years, but can it also show any anomalies in that chain?'
'Anomalies?'
'Like a break in the chain, where it shows a different type of diet, at least for a period of time?'
'Hold on.'
Sean heard some paper rustling and a chair squeaking.
'I don't see anything like that,' Waters said.
'Nothing out of the ordinary?'
More paper rustled. 'Well, I'm no scientist, but you know how we were discussing that the perp was probably rural because of the unprocessed meats and vegetables and the well water?'
'Yeah.'
'Well, there was elevated levels of salt, which makes sense if these folks are preserving stuff, right?'
'Right. We already discussed that.'
'Well, in addition to the elevated levels of that, there was higher than normal amounts of sodium.'
'But, Chuck, sodium is salt. That would be from canning vegetables and curing meat. We covered that.'
'Hey, Einstein, I know that. But they've developed new technologies that can let them distinguish between certain types of sodium found with the isotope exam. What the tests show is elevated levels of a specialized sodium product that is commercially produced but not readily available to the public.'
'Would that be because they supply a certain government entity? Like the military? Like sodium in MREs?'
'If you knew about the meals-ready-to-eat angle why are you wasting my time?' Waters said angrily.
'I suspected. I didn't know for certain until you just told me now. And since you obviously knew already, it would've been nice if you had volunteered the info before now.'
'I'm running an investigation here, King, not a consulting service.'
'There are commercially available MREs. For like the survivalists. You sure it's not that sort of sodium?'
'The sodium level in the military MREs are higher than the commercially available stuff. But so it was military, so what? That only narrows it down to millions of people.'
'Maybe, maybe not.'
'What do you mean by that?'
'If the perps are military, can't you run the hair sample for a DNA match through the Pentagon's enlistment records? They require DNA samples from everybody now.'
'I tried to, but their damn system crashed. Fighting two wars has apparently strapped their budget for computer maintenance. Won't be back up for a couple weeks.'
'Great.' Sean clicked off and looked at Michelle.
'So where do MREs get us?' she said.
'Now we know the odds are very high that the perp was military. It's at least good to confirm that. But we still have the little issue of tracking him down. It doesn't sound like we'll be getting a DNA match anytime soon.'
'He couldn't still be in the military, could he?'
'And went on some R and R to conduct a little kidnapping? And got back to base with his face all scratched up and a bullet bruise on his chest?'
'So discharged?'
'Presumably. Either honorably or dishonorably. But that still doesn't help us. Because there are literally millions of former members of the military.'
Michelle was staring at Sean's chest.
He looked down. 'Coffee spill?' he said.
'He was wearing body armor. Sure, you can leave the military with some government stuff, but body armor?'
'You can get that on the street.'
'Maybe, or you can just take it with you.'
'Pretty tough to hide that when you're discharged.'
'What if you left without being discharged?'
'AWOL?'
