Prologue

April 2nd, 2020, Washington DC

“It’s unpleasantly cold, even for early April,” John Fairfield mumbled more to himself than anyone else as he flipped up the collar of his coat, before directing his attention towards his secretary. “I’m leaving for the Anderson meeting. I’ll be back in approximately three hours. Inform Dallas that I expect his proposal for the Cuomo situation, and remind the leader of surveillance team two about the packet’s arrival. I.T. just sent me a message that it is expected to be delivered this evening.”

Even though Miss Boise was in the middle of a phone call while also composing an email during his speech, he didn’t wait for any form of acknowledgment before he turned to leave. He knew she had fully understood everything he said and would carry out his instructions perfectly. After all, he had chosen her as his assistant for that very reason and had started poaching her even before her service term with the Mossad was completed.

Immediately after finishing his speech, he turned to leave the office and entered the elevator for the fifteen-floor ride down into the lobby, where his driver was already waiting for him. It really was cold. Despite it already being midday and the sun standing high without a cloud in sight, the thermometer would barely scratch the forties. Fairfield could already feel the slight effects of an oncoming cold, so he was happy that his client had booked a room in the Jefferson for their meeting. The thought of taking his usual walk through Lincoln Park on Capitol Hill while discussing his client’s needs for two hours made him shudder.

When they arrived at the Jefferson roughly twenty minutes later, he made his way directly to room 211 without stopping at the hotel’s reception desk to announce his arrival or calling his client to warn him about it. He enjoyed playing with the security personnel of these plush hotels, just as much as he enjoyed toying with his clients’ personal security details. He knew his way around the preferred lodgings of the upper ten thousand. So, simply by striking up a conversation with another guest after taking a quick glance at him to take in all the hints about his personal interests, he inconspicuously managed to accompany that guest into the elevator without being questioned or checked by anyone in charge.

As he stepped out of the elevator on the second floor, he bid his short-term friend goodbye and rounded the corner, where he discovered Anderson’s bodyguard standing in front of his employer’s room.

Fairfield had to shake his head upon taking an appraising look at the guy. He was big, at least 6’5’’, with a bulky build. Approximately in his late twenties. And his eyes were fixated on a point at the wall opposing him. He was bored!

That man was meant to deter attackers with his imposing appearance, but Fairfield doubted he would have the needed speed and flexibility to fend off an actual attack. If he even reacted to it in time, since, at that moment, Fairfield wouldn’t have been surprised if the man started to drool while he used his shoe to draw patterns into the carpet. How someone like Senator Anderson, whose net worth was estimated at around four hundred million dollars, could employ someone like that to provide security for him, was beyond Fairfield’s comprehension.

Fairfield got rid of his coat and stashed it behind a big flower pot, leaving him standing in his quite expensive business suit. Then he inserted his mono-headphone into his ear, grabbed his phone, squared himself out, and started walking at an increased pace while fixing the bodyguard with an angry look. The guard raised his head to look at Fairfield when he was only three more steps away, and Fairfield instantly opened up on him.

“What in the world are you doing here!? You are supposed to guard Senator Anderson, not perform a stress test on our carpets!”

The bodyguard blinked at Fairfield in a mixture of surprise and uncertainty.

“The Senator is in the room right behind me. What are you...” he tried to reply, visibly shaken by this authoritarian stranger ripping him out of his bored daze.

“Son, where did you get your training!? The senator is in room 1-1-2, not 2-1-1! You are currently guarding Mrs. Fisher’s suite!”

“But, the senator said...” the bodyguard stuttered.

“Now you listen to me, Son,” Fairfield interrupted the confused man again, speaking in a quiet but demanding voice. “I am the Jefferson’s head of security. I am fairly confident that I know which rooms our guests reside in! And I have been watching you through our security system, loitering in front of Mrs. Fisher’s suite, for the past twenty minutes. That ends now! I strongly suggest you make your way to the senator’s room promptly, or I will kick you out of our house myself before assigning my own security team to guard his room for the duration of his stay!”

“Holy Shit, this worked a lot quicker than I expected!” Fairfield thought to himself as he watched the inexperienced bodyguard start towards the elevators. Obviously, his client had, once again, misappropriated his security personnel by letting them take care of his check-in procedure, while he himself immediately went to his room. This also meant that the ‘Bodyguard’ had failed to search the senator’s room for IEDs and other unpleasant surprises before allowing his charge to enter it, or to at least talk with the real head of security before even arriving in the hotel.

“What a bungler,” Fairfield said under his breath as the man entered the elevator under Fairfield’s stern watch. Then he recovered his coat and returned to Senator Anderson’s room. He produced a six-inch long spring steel wire out of his coat pocket, inserted it next to the door latch into the gap of the frame, and silently entered the senator’s room after roughly five seconds of fiddling.

Senator Richard Anderson was forty-one years old and liked to present himself as living proof of the viability of the American dream. Born into an admittedly poor family, he worked hard to make his way through the ranks of ‘Schrader Bank & Trust’, a privately owned bank, with an upper-class clientele. Thanks to Schrader’s careful investment politics, which were mainly attributed to Anderson’s foresighted assessments of economic developments, they made an absolutely obscene fortune during the 2008 real estate crisis. That was followed by yet another genius play during the Euro-crisis in 2010, which, again, earned Anderson’s bank numerous new wealthy clients and billions of dollars in profit. Now, ten years later, he exclusively surrounded himself with wealthy and influential ‘friends’ who helped him make the move into politics a few years ago.

He was generally seen as a man of integrity and family values, as he was happily married, though never blessed with children of his own. His idyllic life, however, was shaken twelve years ago, when his wife was tragically killed by a drunken driver. After an adequate grieving period, he married his new wife, Yvette, who had lost her own spouse to a workplace accident. Seeing a chance to finally fulfill his long-term dream of having a family, he adopted Paul, the ten-year-old Yvette brought into the relationship, to provide that boy with a stable home, love, and guidance.