Page 88 of Secret Service

It all comes down to the M-RID.

The Mobile Rapid ID scanner is typically used on a person, not a piece of tape. It can scan a fingerprint and phone home to headquarters, where we’re networked into every global database, and let us know in seconds exactly who we’ve got in our hands. Information like that is a necessity when we’re controlling access to the president.

Hudson pulls on a glove and lines the print up as best he can against his own index finger. The same angle, same position. He lays the print down, and the machine beeps as it boots up.

We watch the Wait icon, a spinning Secret Service shield, go around and around.

It’s taking longer than usual. Much longer.

I’m expecting Clint Cross to appear on the display. The lone gunman assassin is the Secret Service’s worst nightmare for exactly this reason. They’re nearly impossible to predict or prevent.

What if the lone gunman has access to the same intelligence you do? What if, in fact, they’ve manipulated the intelligence and crafted their own perfect environment for an assassination?

Clint had everything he needed for this attack. He knew where Brennan was going and when, and, thanks to his CIA access, he could easily have found out that Henry was my second-in-command. Broken into his PlayStation and eavesdropped. Broken into his home, too. After Director Liu left him yesterday, did Clint come straight here?

Finally, the M-RID beeps. The screen flashes red. Match Found.

Hudson’s eyes shift to mine.

Konstantin Petrov, Russian Embassy, Assistant Deputy for Cultural Affairs.

I frown. “Run it again.”

Hudson does, but the print comes back with the same result.

There must be some mistake. Konstantin is a senior FSB officer. His name creeps up countless times in our intelligence, especially when Russians in Washington or London have taken suicidal plunges from their high-rise balconies or shot themselves twice in the head.

“Fuck.” Sheridan vocalizes what I’m thinking.

There’s no way Sheridan would ever forget Konstantin Petrov. Not after New York.

But what’s the intersection between Konstantin Petrov and Clint Cross?

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