After pouring over papers for several hours, Natalie stood up to stretch and looked out the window. The warm summer sun was beginning to cast shadows in such a way that she knew it was getting to be late afternoon.
"Honey, what time is it? I forgot to wear my watch today." She said.
Adrian stopped what he was doing and looked. "It's four-fifteen" he answered.
"Oh goodness! The babies! We need to get over to the daycare and pick them up. They close at five o'clock." She exclaimed.
Monk immediately shut the folder he was reading through and stood to leave. As he did, the chair he had been sitting in rolled across the carpet and bumped into the small credenza behind his desk, causing a photo frame to topple over and fall onto the floor.
Adrian bent down to pick it up but couldn't reach it. He got down on his hands and knees and slightly moved the credenza to retrieve the frame. He reached behind the furniture, and then, he noticed it.
Dust? No, plaster. It was just a minuscule amount on the carpet below the outlet, but his hyper-observant eyes caught it. He reached out his fingers and picked some of the crumbs of plaster up, rolling them between his index finger and his thumb. Furrowing his brow, he traced upward to figure out where it might have fallen from. The only possibility was the outlet itself.
"Hmmmm…" he said.
"What's wrong?" Natalie asked.
He leaned in and looked at the cover, and then sat back on his heels and looked about five feet away at a similar cover under the window.
Looking at Natalie he said, "This. This right here." Then, he pointed at the cover.
Across town, a team member from the New America People's Liberation Front or NAPLF for short, watched the action.
"Uh – oh." Said the man.
"What?" said his superior.
"We've got trouble. Monk spotted the device." He replied.
"$h!#" the superior replied. "Get Miller on the line."
"What's that?" Natalie asked.
"Look at the color of this plate, and the screw itself." He said.
Natalie leaned over and looked. "Yeah? What about it?"
"They are two different colors. They don't match. Look over at that switch plate over there. Is it the same way?" he asked.
Natalie walked over to the plate. "Screw and cover are the same beige. I think that beige is also a little different from this one over here. It's more grey."
Adrian bent down to get a better look at the socket and saw that the lower outlet looked different.
"Natalie! Get in my desk drawer and pull out my Swiss Army knife." Adrian said.
She walked over to the desk and opened his top drawer. "I don't see it." She said.
Adrian looked over his shoulder and said impatiently. "Second drawer! Second drawer!"
Natalie frowned. "Well, you didn't say!" She opened the second drawer and pulled out the knife. Slapping it into his hand, she got a glare from him which she returned with folded arms.
He sighed and turned back to the outlet. Taking the knife in his left hand, he opened it up with his right and slid open the screwdriver function. He used it to carefully remove the screw. He then pried the cover off of the outlet. As he did, he saw that hidden inside were a camera and a small microphone. He turned to Natalie who was peering over his shoulder and the two locked eyes, but didn't say a word. The bad guys had heard it all.
"I'll call security. Get your purse. We're leaving." Adrian said gravely.
"Going now!" she said hurriedly.
Monk jumped up and grabbed the research folders from their desks, locking that which couldn't leave the room up for the evening. The rest, he took with him.
Taking the elevator down to the lobby, they met up with their Secret Service agents.
"We have to stop by the White House and pick up our kids. You'll follow us?" Adrian asked.
"Yes. We'll be right behind you and will stand guard over the house during the night. In the morning, the next shift will come take our places. You will be guarded at 24/7. Trust me. Nothing will get to you."
"I'm sure glad to hear that." Said Natalie, as she took out her car keys and hit the remote to unlock the door.
Suddenly, a huge explosion rocked the area as the Monk's car was incinerated in a ball of flame.
Secret service agents immediately began to dive onto Natalie and Adrian, but Monk shoved them aside and began running towards the car. As the horror of the attack was displayed before him, he had experienced a brief post-traumatic episode stemming from his past in which he was transported back to when Trudy's car exploded. The blast caused him to become psychologically confused, making him believe that Natalie was actually in the car when it blew.
"Nooooo!" he screamed, as a second explosion knocked him to the ground. "Natalieeeee!"
The Secret Service agent caught up with him and tried to pull him back. Utter horror had taken over and Adrian nearly collapsed in the man's arms in shock. Bewildered, the agent turned back to his partner.
"He's flipped out! What do I do?" he said.
"Get off! Get off me!" Natalie screamed, realizing what was going on better than perhaps anyone. "I have to get to my husband!"
"Ma'am, it's not safe…" said the agent.
"I'm not going to tell you a second time. Off! Now!" she screamed. At which point the agent release her.
Quickly, she ran over to Adrian's side and pushed the agent away from him. Throwing her arms around him, she held him tight and spoke softly to him, rocking along with him as the horror began to dissipate from his face.
"Adrian. It's me, Natalie. It's your wife. I'm here. I'm okay. I wasn't in the car." She said. "Adrian? Adrian? Can you hear me?" she said.
He blinked once. Twice. And then shook his head. Slowly, he began to come back to reality. He looked at her. She looked real. She felt real. He brought his hand up to his forehead and tried to focus. Next, he took the same hand and put it on the side of her face.
"You're okay?" he said, looking at her shaken to his core.
"I'm okay." She said, kissing his forehead as he grabbed onto her arm. "I told you I wasn't going anywhere. I'm still here."
"I…I thought…." He said, still a bit disoriented.
"I know. We're both okay." She said.
"How? How did they…?" said Monk.
"I don't know. How did they?" she asked, angrily. "Have you guys been watching our stuff the whole time?" she said.
"Yeah, ever since we got here." The first agent said.
"Had to have happened before we got here. We've stood guard ever since we arrived." said the second agent.
Before she could say another word, a text came into Natalie's phone. She picked it up and read it out loud.
Mrs. Monk. I'm disappointed that you did not take our gracious offer of safety seriously, but you have proven our point. Avoidance of human casualties unfortunately is not an effective means of achieving our goals. From here on, the blood on this nation's hands will be met with similar level of force on our part. Consider what you just experienced to be your final warning. Now, I suggest that you hitch a ride to the Day Care and go pick up your children. We wouldn't want something happening to them. SM.
PS- Tell Armstrong, when you see him, I've been looking forward to meeting him for a very long time.
Press personnel gathered at the White House waiting for the official response concerning the car bombing on FBI property earlier that afternoon. The White House Press secretary kept them at bay with a high overview of what everyone already knew – that a car had exploded in the parking lot of the FBI building, that nobody was injured, and that they believed it was part of the recent string of attacks. He did not say who was responsible or who the intended target was.
Adrian and Natalie slipped out the side door with Lee and Abby and kept their heads low as minor press people not invited to the Press Conference hung around outside hoping to get their own exclusives. Secret Service pushed them away one by one, but, one nervous looking woman with a press badge on managed to slip Natalie a note as she moved forward to get into the waiting car.
Once in the car, Adrian held the babies tightly in his arms in the back seat, kissing and caressing their little heads as he tried to calm his nerves. Meanwhile, Natalie pulled the note out of her pocket, unfolded it and read.
Be Silent. Surveillance. Mirage. Premier. Sam A.
With furrowed brow, she elbowed Adrian and motioned for him to read it quietly. When he was finished, he gave her a quizzical look and shrugged his shoulders.
"Wow. That sure was a mess back there, with all the journalists gathered around sharing and conveying news." Natalie said, trying to give him a hint as to where it came from.
"Yeah. It was." He stated. "You okay?"
"I'm fine. You?" she asked.
"Still a bit shaky." He replied, looking down and to his left.
In the front seat, a Secret Service agent spoke to his superior giving him the latest details. Additional security would be supplied for the Monks due to the close call.
"Just got off the phone with my supervisor. You two are going to be as well guarded as the President, and they are beefing up security even more around your family. You should be safe now." Said the agent.
Natalie nodded, but Adrian was in his own little world.
Be Silent. Surveillance. Adrian figured out that the person who handed Natalie the note had wanted her to not read it out loud because someone was listening. But how? They had found the bugs in his office. Were there more? If so, it would explain how they knew so much, but how would they have that opportunity….? The purse snatcher! He must have planted something in Natalie's purse.
Adrian looked up at Natalie.
"Will you take the kids a minute?" he said.
"Sure." She said, trying to make it sound natural but knowing something was on his mind.
As they made the transfer, Adrian bent down and picked up her purse. He looked in the pockets and felt around the lining for anything that felt unusual. He examined the stitching, and all looked undisturbed. Next, he did the same with her wallet, even going so far as to examine her credit cards to see if one might be wired. Finally, he looked at her cell phone to see if it had been tampered with. Since they both had the same model, he held them up, side by side. Everything looked in order, until he looked at the earphone jacks. Hers was covered over, his was not.
His lips parted and he looked her straight in the eye and nodded. He showed her the two ends and she looked alarmed. Adrian put the phone back in her purse and leaned forward with his head in his hands. He needed another meeting with Stoddard and Abramson, and he needed to figure out what else was meant in the note. Mirage. Premier. Sam A. This might be the key, but with his nerves still shaky he was having a hard time making the connection. He spent the rest of the drive home trying to will himself to calm down. This was no time to 'Monk out.'
