at him when he registered under a work alias. This wasn’t the type of place interested in checking an ID. When he got to the room, the first thing he did was text the room number via an encrypted app. It wouldn’t be long before he found out what the fuck was going on.
Worry toyed with his need for calm. Whatever this was, he knew it wasn’t going to be simple or easy. His suspicions were confirmed when he answered a two-rap door knock, and a trio of very obvious Secret Service agents crowded into the room.
Well, fuck me sideways, he thought with no amount of excitement at the prospect of working with the grown-ups. Secret Service involvement meant this thing reached pretty high. The knowledge was not comforting—not one bit.
“Special Agent Burns,” a beefy bald guy said by way of introduction. The words were not intended to be a conversation starter, so Arnie stayed mute.
Agent Burns held up a small device handed off from a second agent. He recognized what it was and realized this situation was seriously lit.
“Ocular scan, sir. If you wouldn’t mind.”
Trying to appear nonchalant, Arnie presented his eyeball.
Seemingly satisfied, Agent Burns nodded at the other agents.
The third agent stepped forward. When he was face-to-face with the stern figure in the standard-issue black suit, he realized the agent was female. She held a square, lidded, black box—opened it and curtly demanded his electronics. All of them, including his watch.
Once he surrendered everything, including his wallet and a silver wrist cuff, Agent Burns wanded him from head to toe with a sophisticated instrument new to Arnie.
At the conclusion of all this, he was waved to a rolling desk chair to await lord only knew what.
Two distinct raps on the door, and in walked a young guy with what he thought was a portable clothes steamer. It turned out to be a robotic detective that moved a laser sensor over every inch of the room—even inside the toilet.
This was some high-level shit, he thought.
“Clear,” the robot tender grunted before exiting.
Nobody moved or spoke, so neither did he. The air around him was filled with something he’d come to recognize through the years. Blind allegiance. These guys were the real fucking deal.
Three minutes later, the floor dropped out from under him when the cheap motel door opened and in walked the second lady of the United States accompanied by the secretary of state.
He leaped to his feet, reviewed what he knew about protocol, and then all but shit himself when a few seconds later, the vice president walked in wearing a wary, panicked expression.
Gobsmacked and on high alert were the only way to describe how he felt. He listened intently as his unlikely visitors spelled out a deadly scenario capable of inciting an international incident.
In a nutshell, the second family’s college-age daughter got recruited and trafficked by a far-right-wing contingent out of Germany with deep ties to some very, very bad actors. A boy had sucked her in, of course. The two of them pulled off an elaborate plan to escape her security detail. By the time anyone realized what was happening, the two were on foreign soil, where they promptly vanished.
Rather than admit the truth, the national security agencies and the White House concocted a cover story. Eventually, Interpol stumbled on her whereabouts.
The heavily armed cell of far-right neo-Nazis planned to marry her off, at gunpoint if necessary, to one of their hard-core extremists as a way to force a seat at the table of power.
The plan was ludicrous. Didn’t they realize fucking with the United States was a sure-fire way to bring the full force of America’s security, diplomatic and military apparatus down on top of them?
What fucking idiots.
He spent five seconds feeling sorry for the vice president and his anguished wife, then he got into the zone.
MI 6 was monitoring a group in Dresden. They offered to inconspicuously insert him. Once he was background noise, infiltrating the Munich cell wouldn’t be a problem. It would be his call if a military extraction was needed. They wanted to avoid an armed confrontation at all costs, which was exactly why he’d been chosen. He’d be able to read the situation on a deeper, more meaningful level than through conventional surveillance. Infiltration was a specialty skill. Lucky him.
This type of assignment was what covert actions on steroids looked like.
With the message delivered, the vice president and second lady exited.
Arnie faced the secretary of state, a formidable man with extensive