IT’S COOL AND dimly lit where I work, the better to see the surveillance monitors and the televisions broadcasting the latest news, gossip, and screaming headlines. I look up, scanning the screens, and for the benefit of my fellow Secret Service agents this morning, I try to keep a sense of professional decorum and manage not to laugh. The man I’ve sworn to die defending has just gotten caught putting his presidential pen into an unauthorized inkwell. He isn’t the first, and won’t be the last, and I don’t particularly care. The Secret Service is a protection agency. We’re not America’s Morality Police. There’s the low murmur of voices, the tapping of keyboards, and radio chatter from police scanners covering Metro DC and all of the local police departments, so we always know what’s going on with our somewhat friendly law enforcement neighbors.
My immediate deputy—Assistant Special Agent in Charge Scott Thompson—stands next to me and says, “What do you think, Sally?”
“Right now I want you to put the word out, especially to the Uniformed Division,” I say. “We’re going to get increased attention from the news media and the usual publicity hounds. I don’t want any fence jumpers, wanting to give the President romantic advice or a Bible, got it? Double up the patrols on the sidewalks…anybody approaches the fences, looks like they’re going to go over, we’re to stop them on the public side. Got it?”
“Got it, boss,” Scott says, and goes back to his desk. Scott is an ex-Army Ranger, bulky and tough, and respectful of me and everyone else in the chain of command, which makes him a keeper.
I shift my gaze from the network screens—AMBUSH IN ATLANTA seems to be the winning headline this morning—and glance at the electronic status board. We and other members of the Presidential Protective Division are fortunate with this administration in that there are no spoiled kids running around, trying to ditch their agents at bars or dance clubs, or slightly nutty mothers-in-law claiming that Peeping Toms are gazing at them undressing in their guest quarters. There’s just the President and First Lady, which makes my job a hell of a lot less complicated than my predecessor’s.
According to the status board, CANAL is on Marine One, seconds away from landing on the South Lawn, and CANARY is—
“Hey, Scotty,” I call out, just as he’s picking up the phone. “Mind telling me why CANARY is at a horse farm in Virginia? Her Plan of the Day this morning didn’t indicate that.”
He says, “Last-minute change of plans, boss. After the news this morning…well, who can blame her? Not me, that’s for sure.”
“Yeah, I get that,” I say, as I head back to my desk. I don’t like last-minute changes. You don’t have the time to prep the visiting area, check out the neighborhood, track down those nuts on the class three list who have made threats against the First Family in the past. The only upside is that with something as sudden as this horse farm visit, you can surprise any bad guys out there hovering around.
And the downside, of course, is that any bad guys out there—especially the patient and tough ones—can react quickly to an opportunity and kill your protectee.
Not a good way to get promoted.
I call over to my assistant. “Hey, Scotty. When you’re done there, contact CANARY’s detail.”
“Sure, boss. What do you want?”
A little whisper of concern seems to be on my shoulder. “Make sure everything’s fine.”
“If it weren’t fine, you’d be the first to know.”
“Scotty,” I say. “Make the damn call.”
And I try to get back to work.