The Raven's Assignment

“Not quite, no,” Jesse said, knowing that if Sean knew the whole truth, he’d probably fall off his chair. “The place has been rented out for about sixty years now. I’m just trying to figure out a way to explain to the Senate Ethics Committee how I, a lowly public servant, came to be part owner of the Chekagovian embassy.”

“You’re kidding,” Sean said, grabbing for the folder, which Jesse quickly raised beyond his reach. “Is that legal? I mean, for a member of the president’s staff to own part of a foreign consulate?”

“I probably own a third of the garage, Sean. There’s a bunch of us who each own a small chunk of the place. The whole Colton tribe, as we call ourselves when we’re being facetious, inherited it. But I’ll admit, it is dicey. I mean, if we have a slow news week, who knows what could happen if this gets out. So I guess I have to tell…somebody.”

“Chief of staff?”

Jesse blew out a quick breath. “Might as well start at the top.” He slid the folder back into his briefcase and stood up. “Luckily, he went home at a decent hour, so it will have to wait. Besides, I need to do a little more digging into the deed, all that legal stuff, to be sure of my facts. See you tomorrow, Sean.”

“See you, Mr. Moneybags, Mr. I-Own-Part-of-Georgetown,” Sean called after him, then said, “Hey, wait! I forgot something.”

“You never forget anything, Sean,” Jesse said, slowly walking back to the desk. “You just want to pump me for more information.”

“Not me. The more you know the less you want to know, that’s my byword. No, seriously,” he said, rooting through some messages on his desk. “This came in late, after your secretary left. Now where in hell—ah, got it.”

He handed Jesse a “while you were out” memo.

Jesse frowned at the unfamiliar name as he read the memo. “Urgent? You did see that part of the message, right, Sean? The urgent part?”

“Hey, everything’s urgent around here. The message arrived via the main switchboard, after being routed to the OEOB first, and then a couple of other places, which is probably how I ended up with it.”

“The Old Executive Office Building? I haven’t worked there in months.”

“Well, guess not everyone knows you’ve been bumped up to a big-deal office in the West Wing. You should have taken an ad. Most do.”

“Funny, Sean,” Jesse said, heading out once more, this time frowning over the pink memo. “Samantha Cosgrove. Urgent. Now, who the hell is Samantha Cosgrove?”

Samantha Cosgrove, all the long blond hair and petitely formed five feet four inches of her, sat behind her desk, staring daggers at her telephone.

She hadn’t gone on her coffee break with Bettyann. She had turned down lunch with Rita.

She hadn’t left her desk all day. She was starving, and her stomach had begun to growl, she was nervous, and she was beginning to get angry.

Okay, so she’d been angry at one o’clock. It was now quarter to five. Now she was incensed.

Bettyann, the staff secretary, stuck her head inside the small office. “I’m heading out now, Samantha. Dinner at the golden arches? My treat.”

“No thanks, Bettyann,” Samantha said, pretending an interest in a pile of campaign literature that was about as exciting as the Weather Channel on a calm, clear day across America.

That’s what the latest slogan was all about: a calm, clear-minded, new day across America. Vote for Senator Mark Phillips for President. Bor-ring. Surely somebody, somewhere, could come up with something better than that?

“You sure, Sam? You haven’t eaten anything all day, except for that cupcake you stole from Rita. Her only satisfaction is that it had been sitting on her desk for two days, and had to be very, very stale.”

“It was,” Samantha said, sighing. “Okay, I’m going home. The world will keep on turning without me if I go home. But no thanks to the golden arches, Bettyann. I can hear leftover stuffed peppers calling my name.”

“Right. See you here tomorrow.”

“See me here, will she?” Samantha grumbled about a half hour later, grimacing as she shoved work into her briefcase. “Why not. Where else would I be?”

She grabbed her light, full-length burgundy raincoat and followed a few other stragglers into the elevator once she’d looked through the outgoing mail, first checking to be sure nobody saw her.

Once outside, Samantha turned right and headed toward the White House on foot.

She had seen photographs of Jesse Colton, so she knew what he looked like: about six feet tall, short black hair, dark eyes. Sort of mysterious-looking, even primal.

“Okay, so he’s a hunk,” Samantha muttered to herself as she pulled up her hood, because it had begun to drizzle. Even in the rain, she loved living in Washington, D.C.

She’d been back in town for two years, because it took at least two years for a presidential candidate like Senator Mark Phillips to float test balloons to see if anyone would vote for him, pretend for months that he wasn’t interested in running, announce the setting up of an informal Phillips for President Committee, talk to the money people, promise everybody everything, and then finally announce his formal candidacy.

Now, with the primaries beginning soon in New Hampshire, the Committee to Elect Mark Phillips had gone into full swing, had gone public, and Samantha was working hard.

She just needed to know if she was working hard for the right man.

Jesse Colton might work in the West Wing now, as she’d been informed, but she already knew he still had to walk to his old parking space, in a parking garage some distance away. It was easier to get into the West Wing than it was to get a better parking place near the White House.

He drove a black sedan, nondescript, yet somehow classy. He arrived at the parking garage by seven o’clock in the morning, six days a week, and could leave again anywhere between five o’clock and midnight.

She knew, because she’d watched him for five long, worrisome days before making the call yesterday. The call that hadn’t been returned today.

“Not stalking, Samantha, watching,” she assured herself tightly as she quickly joined some other people as if she belonged with them, and then stepped into the parking garage, out of the drizzle that was rapidly turning into a downpour. “There’s a difference.”

The difference, she decided two hours later, was that stalkers probably planned better. Maybe even brought a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a thermos of piping-hot coffee with them.

She’d finally given in and jogged to a small local restaurant to grab a take-out hot dog and a soda, along with a bag of potato chips, then jogged all the way back to breathe a sigh of relief when she saw the black sedan still in its assigned parking spot.

It was nine o’clock and she had begun fantasizing about peanut butter and jelly sandwiches again, when she finally saw him.

She thought it was him. She could be delirious from lack of food, but she was ninety-nine percent sure the man walking toward her was Jesse Colton.

When he clicked something on his key chain and the black sedan’s lights went on, she was sure.

Stepping out from behind her second home—the concrete pillar—she said, “Jesse Colton? If I could have a minute of your time, please?”

He kept walking. “Call my office.”

“I did.”

“Did you leave a message?”

“I did. For you to call me. You didn’t.”

“Now there’s a clue,” he said, opening the rear door of the sedan and throwing his briefcase inside. “It’s late. If you want an interview, go through the press secretary’s office.”

“I don’t want an interview,” she said, walking toward him. “I’m not a reporter.”

“Darn. And I’ll bet you’re not this generation’s Deep Throat, either, ready to tell me deep dark secrets, or Mr. White, who was going to let me know that Mr. Green did it, in the library, with the rope. I don’t get any luck.”

He had opened his car door and slid inside, but before he could close the door again, Samantha was there, her body between the door and the car.