Chapter 3 of The DAD Protocol
Senator Jeffs sat back in his big leather chair, alone in his private office. It had been a good week.
No—a great week.
The President owed him one, and he was going to collect. Swinging enough Senators to support the “great compromise” budget vote hadn’t been popular among the rest of the senior echelon of the Senate, and it had taken every negotiating skill he had. With the other Senate Republican leadership opposed, he’d had to twist elbows, call in debts and promise favors, but he’d done it.
Was it the right thing to do? Hell, something had to give. With Congress so partisan and almost evenly split in numbers, nothing got done anymore.
Social Security and Medicare were bankrupt, spending was out of control, and the tax system was completely broken. Senator Jeffs wanted to vomit every time the liberal press mentioned the trust fund of Social Security. He and his counterparts had spent that money. It was gone, and SSA was now spending more than they were taking in. His efforts were going to at least slow the hemorrhage of debt, even if it came with some new taxes. And maybe the agreement he had negotiated with those damned liberals might actually cut the budget by a few bucks.
He really didn’t care anymore. He was past the point of giving a shit. If the American people were too stupid to see that the U.S. was no better than Greece, then fuck ‘em.
But before he left politics, or got kicked out, he had one last obligation. His daughter had been raped a decade ago, and he was going to find the bastard who had done it.
He had given up on the police ever catching him.
So he would do it himself.
This little favor for the President got him the chit he needed to pass a whole different bill—one to create a national DNA registry. The law, positioned as a minor addendum to The Health Care for America Act, was key to improving donor/recipient matches and research. But more important to him, it would allow him to finally track down a rapist.
The police had the evidence; there had just never been a match.
With every American’s DNA stored in the system, he could find the son-of-a-bitch who had stolen his daughter Melanie’s innocence. And in reality, her future. Oh, she was still alive, but at 25 years old and still living at home, she was a recluse. That animal had altered what should have been a movie-script life. Traveling the world, whichever college she wanted, and dating the most attractive eligible bachelors in Washington, D.C.—she would have had the dream life.
But those dreams were dead. And now Senator Jeffs would do everything in his considerable power to find the man responsible.
His eyes glazed over as he relived the horror ten years ago.
His wife Barbara always picked up Melanie from her private school in Alexandria. Congressman Jeffs back then, only in his second term as a U.S. Representative from Missouri, was always too busy. But that day, he had promised to pick her up. He was supposed to be free in the afternoon, and so he told his wife he would be there by 5:00. An emergency roll-call vote, some unanticipated traffic, and it was close to 6:00 before he got to the school. Already concerned, he really panicked when he arrived and she was nowhere to be found. Frantic calls to the police were answered with platitudes about buddies and nearby shopping malls. It wasn’t until hours later authorities got serious and canvassed her friends and the surrounding area. Although only a relatively short wait, it had seemed interminable.
At 3:00 the following morning, they received the call.
Melanie had been found.
She was badly beaten, in a coma, and had been raped. And the outcome, when she regained consciousness two days later, was that she had suffered internal bleeding, vaginal tearing, and had even lost a kidney. She had no permanent brain damage but also had no recollection of the abduction or the attack. Without her assistance, and with no match on the physical evidence, the monster remained at large. So as to protect his family—and he reluctantly admitted to himself, his political career—the matter remained a closely guarded secret.
Senator Jeffs opened his eyes and rubbed his face for several moments. He felt the vein in his forehead swelling, his face flushing.
It was his fault, and he would never forgive himself. Forcing himself to relive the experience was his penance, paying the price every father should.
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