DECEPTIO (EXCERPT)

CHAPTER 2

Special Agent Camilla Rodriguez scanned the crowd gathered on the Les Miller field from her vantage point at the back. From where she stood, she had a good view of everything and everyone. Personally, she didn’t think anyone in his right mind would try to kill the senator with the police and the FBI present. Only a suicidal maniac would attempt anything would think of making an attempt on his life. Therefore, to her it was a monumental waste of time that so much manpower had been allocated to prevent something she didn’t think would happen. There were other things she and her colleagues could be doing rather than sitting and twiddling their thumbs as they waited for something that was never going to happen.

Camilla had been shown the letters sent to Senator Partridge. There were three of them and they were supposed to be from some hitherto unknown fundamentalist Christian group called Christ’s Warriors opposed to his message of freedom and rights. The letters had been composed from newspaper cuttings pasted on white paper. They had been analyzed by FBI experts but they had been unable to come up with any prints. All they had been able to find out was the fact that the paper was of the cheap variety that could be obtained from any store. They were also not any closer to finding out more about the group that had threatened his life. That was if such a group actually existed.

Her friends and colleagues knew that Senator Partridge wasn’t exactly Camilla’s favorite person in the world. But the fact that she didn’t like him wasn’t why she wasn’t convinced that there actually was a plot on his life. It was that there were just too many things that didn’t add up. The group that allegedly wanted to kill him was not on the FBI database of fundamentalist or terrorist groups and had never been heard of before. The first they had got to hear about the group was when the senator had come to them with the letters. While she admitted that it was possible for a totally new group who had as their sole aim and purpose, the killing of Robert Partridge to spring up, the fact that they had been unable to find any trace of the group made her skeptical. For all she knew, the only place the group existed was in Robert Partridge’s mind.

The fact that the senator had only come to them after he received the third letter was in Camilla’s view, another reason why she found it hard to believe that such a group actually existed. His excuse had been that when he got the first and second letters, he had believed it was a prank being played by someone he knew. It was only after the third one came that his wife had convinced him to take the matter seriously and come and see the FBI. Camilla found that hard to believe. The senator must have known that he had a lot of enemies because of who he was and the privileged family he came from and that he was making a lot more with his speeches. She therefore expected that if he had received a threat, it was to be taken seriously until it was proved to be a hoax.

Camilla scanned the crowd again this time with the binoculars hanging around her neck. There were quite a few people speaking on their mobile phones but Camilla doubted if there was any one of them who was speaking to the leader of some fundamentalist group. As far as she was concerned, if any one wanted to kill the Senator, he or she had a great chance of succeeding before being caught. Even with all the FBI agents and officers of Chicago police department all over the place and in plain clothes among the people, it was still a nightmare scenario. Not that she was saying that anyone was going to try to kill the senator, especially not any phantom fundamentalist group, but she would breathe easier when the senator gave his speech and left the stage.

Speaking of speeches, she wondered when he was going to come on stage. She looked at her watch. It was some minutes after 11 o’clock. Any moment from now, it would be time for the speech. She hoped that it wasn’t going to be a long one.

“Here, I bought you a hot dog.”

Camilla jumped at the sound. She turned toward the voice and saw her colleague, Jeremiah Walker, holding out a hot dog in her direction with his left hand while in his right hand, he held another hot dog that he had taken a bite from. He had startled her. She had been lost in her thoughts and hadn’t heard him walk up.

“You startled me,” she accused even as she took the hot dog from him. She removed the paper around the hot dog and took a bite. She had not eaten anything that morning. She had only drunk a cup of coffee to fortify herself for the day ahead. Somewhere along the line, she had forgotten she was hungry.

“I didn’t know if you liked mustard or ketchup with your hot dog but I guessed it wouldn’t hurt if it was mustard,” he said. “If you don’t like it, I can go back and get another one,” he offered.

“No, it’s okay. It’s fine,” she assured him even as she took another bite. She sighed with satisfaction as the food hit all the right spots. “What’s a hot dog without mustard any way?” she asked.

He laughed even as he bit into his own. His white teeth showed up against the brown of his face. “Of course.”

“You’re a life saver, you know that, don’t you?” she asked.

“I aim to please,” he replied. He enjoyed the way she ate. She ate heartily like one who was enjoying the food, rather than someone eating just to keep alive. In that regard, she wasn’t like other women. And the fact that she seemed to have a body metabolism that didn’t allow her to put on weight no matter what she eat, didn’t hurt either.

“I was only able to swallow a cup of coffee this morning before I had to rush out of the house,” she said as she chewed. She had almost finished the hot dog. That was another thing; she just seemed unable to take her time while eating. She took the view that it wasn’t the time you took over the food that made you feel full; it was the amount of food you eat. Whether you spent an hour or two minutes, the benefits were the same.

“I’m not really a breakfast person myself,” he said, raising one shoulder in a shrug. He watched as she popped the last bit of the hot dog into her mouth, licking the mustard from her fingers before cleaning her hand with the napkin provided. “You’ve got a bit of mustard beside your mouth,” he said.

“Where?” she asked, raising her hand to clean her mouth, missing the trace of mustard that had somehow gotten on to the side of her mouth from the wrapping around the mustard. “Is it gone?”

“No, it’s still there. Just beside your mouth,” he answered amused.

“Where?” she asked. “Left or right?”

“Right,” he answered, his amusement vanishing as he watched her tongue come out to lick the mustard away. His breathing grew shallow. He wished he could help her lick away the mustard.

“Is it all gone?” she asked.

“Yes,” he answered, not sure if his voice sounded normal. He didn’t feel normal. He turned away.

Camilla looked at him. He sounded funny. She was about to ask him if he was alright when it occurred to her what might be wrong with him. If it was what she thought it was, it would be better to let sleeping dogs lie. She didn’t know what had set him off and she wasn’t sure she wanted to find out.

Ever since Jeremiah Walker had been transferred to the Chicago office of the FBI from New Orleans, he had made no secret of the fact that he liked her. So he only liked her, a voice in her head scoffed. Liked? Liked was a lukewarm word, the voice in her head mocked. Well, extremely attracted to her, she revised mentally. And he felt she was attracted to him too, which Camilla didn’t deny. He had therefore seen nothing wrong with taking the mutual attraction to the next logical level by having an affair. But while Camilla was willing to admit that she liked him as a friend, she wasn’t about to get into a relationship with him. Because they were different.

(JC Cruz is the author of DECEPTIO. DECEPTIO is published by WestBow Press, a division of Thomas Nelson Publishers. You can get a copy from www.westbowpress.com/store)