Scott Roarke 03 - Executive Command Read Online Free PDF Page B

flirtatious. Those were the real traits that drew Katie Kessler to him in Boston less than a year earlier. Those were the characteristics that she loved. Those qualities made him a whole person. But without her, he wasn’t complete.
    Roarke was engrossed in the Journal-Constitution account. It was a murder story, unrelated to the protection of the president, but something caught his attention. He’d been searching the Internet a great deal recently, most of the time aimlessly. However, he trusted his hunches and he continued to look for connections that no one else might recognize.
    The wall opposite his desk and the one around the side were full of clippings. He’d written question marks on some. Others were marked with a big red X. Most were murder victims; some were obits of prominent citizens who died of natural causes. Or seemingly natural, Roarke quietly considered. So far, none appeared related.
    He keyed on a list of names a friend at the bureau had researched. They covered the gamut of high school and college teachers, career army officers, retired servicemen, and a host of other everyday people. There were hundreds of names. Some were obviously going to be meaningless; many had died. He was particularly interested in hearing what those people could tell him. He was certain even the dead could find a way to speak up.
    Fortunately, Roarke had friends in high places. A good deal of the heavy lifting was done for him by the FBI. As a result, he received extracts from files, full biographies, and obituaries. He could call upon the bureau to conduct field interviews whenever and wherever necessary. And why? It all came down to a gut feeling.
    Now another obit. Roarke read it closely. A CEO of a software company outside of Atlanta. Graduate of an arts school in Cincinnati. Right age. Possible. He’d have to check.
    The agent sent the file to his HP Color Laser printer. It quickly spit out a hard copy. Roarke highlighted key words:
Victim.
Hit-and-run
.
Veteran
.
Chairman of the Board
.
42
. In Roarke’s mind, nothing distinguished this particular sad death from the scores of others he found. But it was going to go on his wall.
    Only three people knew what he had been doing in his secluded office since September—the president; Shannon Davis, his close buddy at the FBI; and his girlfriend, Katie Kessler.
    Katie noticed mood changes. So far he had nothing to show for his time. What started as intuition was becoming an obsession; a long, slow, unfulfilled obsession.
    Now he had 221 clippings and the belief that there was a thread through some of them. But what? He went back to the computer and once again was unaware of the song he was tapping out.
    The White House press room
    “We’ve struck in Indonesia, the Philippines, in Mexico, Venezuela, and Saudi Arabia. We have done so with the permission of those governments,” Morgan Taylor continued without the benefit of notes. “We have destroyed weapons caches and training camps without committing troops. But there’s no victory to celebrate. And I don’t stand before you to claim one. I can’t, because like it or not, the enemy is here.”
    “Next question?” So far no one had touched the other hot button—Taylor’s plan to overhaul the laws that govern the line of succession. Maybe now. He pointed to a legendary Wall Street Journal reporter midway in the first row. “Yes, Bill.”
    “Mr. President, you must realize what civil liberties activists, as well as Democrats, will say about this.”
    “Yes,” Taylor said. No question yet , he thought. It’ll come.
    “Sir,” the reporter continued, “Do you intend to sell this up the Hill in the name of National Security?”
    The president took a deep breath. “Mr. Barlow, within the last two years we have learned a great deal about the lengths to which seemingly ordinary citizens will go to destroy our republic. Their means always surprise us. Did any of us recognize the enemies among us? Would we now?”