Washington DC, White House. 13/11/2012. 18:35.
In the Oval office, President William Hayes was clearly showing signs of tiredness. After his impromptu meeting in the kitchen and the thorough search of the White House to find the intruder, he did not get the chance to sleep and went back to work immediately. The schedule of the leader of the free world was packed to put it mildly. Every second of his day was accounted for to meet each of his meetings on time.
Despite all of that, there was one person in the entire world who could come and go to his office and it was the exact person on the other side of his desk right now. Grey hair, fifty two years old and rather slim, his interlocutor was not impressively built. Despite that, he had an intense aura around him that made him be noticed and respected by the people who knew him. Tobias Cain was the head of the secret service since the first day William had been elected.
Knowing each other since high school where they played football in the same team, they had developed a faithful friendship despite their differences. When William got admitted into Harvard, Tobias engaged in the military immediately after college. Distinguishing himself in the rangers and after more than thirty years of service was called back by his old friend to be in charge of the secret service.
While their life led them in different directions, they had always managed to keep in touch over the years, keeping their friendship very much alive contrary to many High school friendships.
"Do you think the files are legit?" The President asked.
After reading through the information in the file, he needed to know if the thing in there was real before using it.
"It is too early to say for sure but I'm willing to bet they are. The question that I'm asking myself is how a brat could have access to this kind of information while we can't." Tobias said thoughtfully.
"This is not the only thing that can't be explained. What I'm asking is how in the hell did he succeed in entering my home and exiting while we were on lockdown without getting spotted even once. Did you find something in his history that could explain what he can do or if he has associates?"
"No, there was nothing my friend but I still found some interesting information. Do you remember the attack on a Hotel in New York a couple of months ago by the Black Hand?"
"Of course I remember, this was a shit show through and through, the operation in South Korea cost us a lot of good men. What about it?"
"He was in that Hotel and there is more. In the record he claimed to have hidden under the bed while an unknown individual started killing the assassins in that hotel. I believe there was no unknown individual but it was him who took care of these guys. If he was so skilled last night it is possible. On the attack by the Black Hand, he killed six of them, all with a single bullet to the head without even missing a shot. He was also the one who afterwards gave the information of it being the Black Hand to the FBI."
"And nobody suspected him?" The President asked, dumbfounded.
"No, they only saw him as a scared kid, adding to the fact that he is a singer, no one suspected him even for a second. If he hadn't come last night, I would be willing to bait that nobody would have ever will."
"He could have killed me last night and disappeared without leaving a single clue behind." The President realized, a little afraid.
"Yes, he could have but he didn't. I studied his file and the only thing that I can affirm is that he's not of the bad type. He often donates money to associations who help war veterans and supports a couple of orphanages in New York. But still, tell me again why you don't want me to arrest him?" Tobias asked.
"Because he was right and with what you told me about him, even more so. He is a young actor and singer, if I order his arrest for breaking into the White House nobody would believe it and we would get tremendous public backlash. And when you consider that he has two and a half millions followers on twitter and he is close with the most popular popstar, you begin to understand how bad it would get. We would fight an uphill battle all the way and since we have no evidence of him being here beside my testimony, it will never hold up in court. And I'm not even talking about his grandfather." The President sighed.
"It's even worse than you think. The kid is known to have a genius legal mind, they will not even need to pay an attorney to screw us in court. Do you know his grandfather well?"
"Not really but we met a couple of times at fundraiser meetings. He supportes my first and second campaign publicly and financially. He is smart, hardworking, influential and ruthless when people touch his company and even more so when he's family is concerned."
"What are you going to do then? If you give the order, I can have a team assembled in an hour to take him down and send him to Guantanamo prison to extract everything he knows."
"No, not yet at least. I'm considering his offer to work for me as an unofficial action team. God knows how much I need one but we don't have any information on who that team might be. Nothing on his calls that could pinpoint his team members?"
"No, except a girl working as an IT in his grandfather's company but I did find something surprising in his call history. He seems… Involved… with a woman called Madison Livingston."
"Livingston? You mean…"
"Yes my friend, daughter of Senator John Livingston." Tobias said with a pained smile, they both knew exactly who the senator was.
"And you want me to throw that kid into Gitmo? Are you insane?" The President shouted to his friend dumbfounded.
William was extremely familiar with John Livingston as they were political opponents, fighting over different issues all the way through the Senate. If he were to take that kid into prison and the senator heard about it, he could rally the whole Senate to impeach him.
"No, I just said the option was there if you wanted to take it, I'm not advising it, however. But still, that kid represents a danger for national security, we need to do something."
"Yes we do." William answered thoughtfully. "You send some agents to keep an eye on him. What did he do today?"
"He woke up at six thirty and then ran for almost two hours in Rock Creek Park. After that he was invited by a local TV channel around noon to give a little interview and promote his movie which is going to come out soon. He passed the rest of the afternoon in the Library of Congress." Tobias answered.
"Does he know we are tailing him?"
"Yes, he knows." Tobias responded, smiling bitterly.
"How can you be so sure?" William asked, surprised.
"He brought coffee to my stakeout agents fives minutes after they arrived in front of his hotel." .
"Really? Who did you send?"
"Parker and Millan, both of them have undercover experience before entering the Secret Service and he still found them in minutes. That's not all, he also brought them sandwiches and cool drinks too. When they asked him why he was doing that, he answered that since they were here because of him, he should try to make their stakeout more endurable." Tobias said, shaking his head amused despite himself.
"Where is he now?"
"A second, let me check." He said, taking his phone out and dialing one of the stakeout agents. The call did not last long and when Tobias hung up, he had a thoughtful expression on his face.
"So?" The President asked, impatiently.
"He's at Walter Reed Army Medical Center."
"It's a military hospital handling only injured military personnel. What is he doing there?"
"I wish I knew my friend."
"Okay, tell our agents on the ground to pick the kid up and bring him to me, make sure we have at least half an hour on my schedule for that. We need answers and he is the only one who can provide them for us."
"No problem." Tobias said, knowing the conversation was over and that he needed to go back to work.