At 6:00 a.m., United States Secret Service Agent Regina Mills boarded a small jet bound for New York City. She wore her ID badge clipped to the breast pocket of her charcoal gabardine suit. She carried an overnight bag with a change of clothes and her computer. The rest of her belongings will follow on a separate flight and would be delivered to her new apartment in the Boro Grove Hotel later that day by some member of her team. After four hours of deep sleep, undisturbed by dreams, she felt fresh and ready to work. That she didn't like her new assignment was now a moot point and no longer concerned her. She had a job to do, and that was all that mattered.
The flight was only partially full. It was Saturday morning, and only a few government employees were traveling. She took a sweat across the aisle from a blond man with a badge that proclaimed "FBI" in bold letters. She saw him study her own badge as she sat down. Female agents were no longer rare, but she still drew attention. She was used to it.
"Investigation division?" He questioned, referring to one of the two arms of the Secret Service, as the plane taxied down the runway.
She nearly said yes, then stopped herself quickly. For twelve years that had been true, but not any longer. With a shake of her head, she replied, "Protective."
"Anybody important?" He asked curiously.
"Aren't the all?"
He couldn't tell if she was joking, so he stifled a laugh. And they say FBI agents are humorless. Jesus.
She opened her laptop computer, subtyl angling the screen away from him. He took the hint and opened a newspaper as she entered her password.
She entered the link to the USSS personnel division and brought up the bios on her new team. Nothing out of the ordinary. Four men and two women in addition to herself, most with more than five years experience in the field. All college educated, as were most agents except the rare few who came through military channels or some other unusual route. All had advanced emergency medical training, as had she, and all were expert marksman. Two of the men and one woman were married; there were one Hispanic and one African-American agent. She fixed a name to each face and exited the site.
Entering another protected password, she brought up the encrypted file she had downloaded the previous night.
Field Report, Fri 12/26/00, 21:30
Submitted by USSS Agent in charge Henry Daniels
Subject: Emma Jennifer Swan
DOB: 10/22/1983
Residence: 710 Boro Grove, PH New York
City, 15643
Phone: (134) 135-6516
Marital Status: Single
Occupation: Artist
Business address: NA
Code Name: Cobra
Physical Description: WF, 5' 5'', 130 lbs.
Hair: Blonde
Eyes: Blue
Distinguishing Marks: 3 cm tattoo left wrist (flower outline)
Education: Lubavitch Girls School, Wellesley
Medical Conditions: None
Allergies: None
Business Agent: Ashley Boyd
Romantic: Current-unverified
Last known: classified, FYEO file
Significant relationships: (SEE ATTACHED REPORTS)
Summary: Standard twenty-four hour, rotating shift surveillance. Subject schedule fluid, frequently unverified. Communication link: Team commander only per subject request. On-person com-links-refused.
The file was bare-bones minimum, and Regina wondered what her predecessor wasn't willing to commit to hard copy. She'd find out soon enough. He was meeting her at the airport for a debriefing.
She slipped her coffee and slipped the thin folder that held the "Eyes Only" report on Cobra's last known lover from her briefcase. She read it carefully, her expression betraying nothing. According to this, until eighteen months ago, the president's daughter had been having an affair with the wife of the French ambassador. For obvious reasons, knowledge of the relationship had been kept under deep cover, although rumors had floated in the security community for years about the sexual leanings of Emma Swan. Regina had heard tam and, because it had nothing to do with her, dismissed them. Apparently, the rumors were a bit more conjecture, and now she could no longer ignore them. Part of her job was to see that the details of the first daughter's personal life remained private and that to the rest of the world, rumors remained just that. Her task would be doubly hard if the subject refused to cooperate.
And if I'm reading between the lines of the field report correctly, the last commander found the president's daughter far from obliging.
She wondered briefly in her appointment as commander of the security detail assigned to Ms. Swan hadn't been due to her own sexual preferences. It wasn't a matter of record, of course, but no one really believed that anyone in the government's employ had any secrets. She has been careful, but certainly not paranoid, about her personal life. After the events of a year ago, she doubted there was much her superiors didn't know. Speculation was futile, and pointless. She knew for certain she didn't care.
She fed the file recounting the details of Emma Swan's love-life into the shredder at the front of the plane as she exited.
"Sorry to transition on the run," Henry Daniels remarked as the settled into a booth in the airport cafeteria. "I have to catch a flight out at 0800"
"No problem," Regina replied neutrally. She didn't know Daniels. She knew almost no one in the protective branch of the service, which might be either a blessing or a curse. She'd have fewer contacts if she needed behind-the-scenes assistance, but she'd also have less history with those above and below her. She'd been given this command, or more correctly, been forced to take it, and intended to run it the way she saw fit. She'd owe no one, and that was just the way she liked it.
"Graham Humbert is the second in command and will basically be your aide, unless you decide you want someone else. He's a good communications man. He has the apartment building plans, evac routes, and hospital info ready to review with you as soon as you arrive. Your NYPD liaison is Captain Mark Goldman; he's Hostage Rescue. He usually interfaces with police patrol division commander, Lieutenant Hank Wilkinson, if Cobra is traveling to some public function. Both good people. Otherwise, we cover her internally. Rotating shifts, eight-hour tours, with a primary agent assigned to her who is free to float if there's some unscheduled event."
"Uh-huh," Regina caid casually. Everything he was telling her could have easily been relayed by anyone on the team. She was waiting for him to get to the point of this private meeting.
He watched her watching him. Her rep was that she was a real straight arrow. A by-the-book agent. She'd have to be to get this post. She certainly looked the part. Her thick dark hair was perfectly trimmed neat around her ears, collar length in the back; her suit was without a wrinkle and subtly tailored to her tight, trim build; she didn't display a hint of nerves or anything else, assessing him with intense, piercing brown eyes. The bio he'd been given showed she'd been advancing rapidly through the investigation unit. Why she'd been reassigned to the protective division was anyone's guess. Beyond that scant information, she was a cipher. He couldn't find anyone who had inside knowledge about her, and no one had heard even a whisper that she was anything other than an obsessively dedicated agent. He met her gaze and made a decision.
"Can we talk off the record here?"
"Go ahead," Regina responded. It's about time.
"Every day for the last six months I woke up wondering who I had pissed off to get this assignment ," he said with a shake of his head. "Cobra is practically impossible to protect because she doesn't want us around. She's been under some kind of protective watch since she was a kid, and she knows the ropes. She's a goddamned expert at misleading us, evading us, and generally humiliating us when it comes to surveillance. She's like Jekyll and Hyde."
He rubbed his face and made an effort to keep his voice even. "at public functions, she's fine-cooperative, even friendly. Privately, she does everything she can to make our job hell. She refuses to discuss her schedule with anyone except the team commander. Congratulations-now that's you."
His tone implied that was a dubious honor. Regina said nothing.
"Then," he continued darkly, "she changes plans without telling anyone. We almost never have time to adjust vehicle placement or equipment, so we're forced to shadow her on foot-which in New York City is a nightmare. She absolutely refuses to wear a microphone or any other tracking device, even on direct instructions form the president." He handed her two photographs. "Then there's this."
She studied the shots side by side. The first was a standard color publicity photo like dozens she'd seen of the president's daughter. The close-up depicted Emma Swan at the opening of the Reagan Building the previous year. As usual, she looked poised and confident. Her blond hair was swept back from her face, held with a silver clasp at the base of her neck. Her make-up was understated and flawless, serving only to accentuate the natural elegance of her sculpted face and clear, smooth skin. Her designer dress highlighted her sleek form, complementing both her athleticism and her subtle softness. She was, in a word, beautiful.
The second photo was a candid taken when the subject was unaware. It was grainy, suggesting it had been shot from a long-range unit through a telephoto lens. The details, however, were clear. The woman in the photo was exiting an apartment building, location unknown, and had been caught as she ran down the stairs to the street. She wore tight faded jeans and a white cotton tank top, short enough to expose an expanse of tight midriff. Her breasts, firm and well shaped, were clearly evident beneath the thin material and just as clearly unencumbered by a brassiere. The clothes displayed her long legs, sleek torso, and toned limbs with brazen explicitness. Her breast length blonde hair hung free around her face, mildly curly, looking as if she had simply run her hands through it in lieu of a comb. She wore no make-up and didn't look like she needed any. Even in the still photo, she exuded an energy that was palpable. She projected the sensuality of a jungle cat and looked about as dangerous. Upon casual observation, she bore almost no resemblance to the contained, refined woman in the first shot.
Regina handed him the photographs silently. It was his show.
"No one in the general public recognizes her like that, and sometimes it even takes us a minute or two. In that time, she can disappear into a crowd, walk into a restaurant unnoticed, or get into a cab without a fuss. That's why it's so easy for her to lose us. No one points a finger at her or runs after her trying to get an autograph."
"But you and your operatives still know what she looks like," Regina pointed out. "You can find her." That was obvious, and she wondered when he would get to the real issue.
He nodded agreement. "Sure we can. Most of the time. The problem is, we need to protect her privacy as well as her reputation." He ignored the slight lift in Regina's eyebrow at that line of bullshit. Emma Swan had no privacy. And they both knew it was the president's image they needed to keep untarnished. Any scandal regarding his daughter reflected on his parenting skills, and ultimately on his character. It wasn't necessarily a make-or-break issue, but every bit of bad press or acrimonious debate affected public opinion. Political fortunes had turned on less.
Blowing out a breath, he cut to the chase. "She's a lesbian. In certain situations, if we call attention to her, that's going to get out. She knows it, and she uses it."
"How so?"
"She frequents some of the gay bars. It's hard for me to put agents in there, even when they're undercover. I never know when she's going to duck into one. Plus, I don't exactly want to announce to everyone in the place that Emma Swan just walked in. She picks up women-women we have absolutely no way of identifying in the moment. We have no way to know where they might go, no wat to put agents in place in advance. We are constantly running in second place hoping to God she doesn't get herself into trouble before we can get there."
"Is she promiscuous?" Regina asked evenly.
"She does better with women than I ever did," he remarked in frustration. "She doesn't have a steady girlfriend. I wish to hell she did. Then maybe we could keep track of her. She doesn't exactly sleep around, but she doesn't go long without sex either."
"What are you trying to tell me here, Agent Daniels?" Regina asked, tired of skirting the edges of the issue. "In addition to the fact that we have an uncooperative, high-profile subject with a very problematic lifestyle?"
"She's an angry animal in a cage, and you're the new zookeeper. She's been trying to escape for years, and when she does, someone is going to get hurt."
Regina inclined her head in agreement. It was a career breaker, and she could see why Daniels was glad to get out. If she had the luxury of empathizing with the first daughter, she would have felt deeply for her predicament. Emma Swan had lived with constant surveillance since her father had been elected vice president for two terms, and prior to that, when he had been governor of New York. Now that he was a newly seated president, she had at least three more years of even closer monitoring. She was a prisoner in all but name, and Regina doubted anyone could tolerate that for long. The political pressure to hide her sexuality surely made it even worse. But Emma Swan's happiness was not her responsibility, and she couldn't waste time or objectively worrying about it.
"Someone may indeed get hurt," she responded. "I intend to see that it's not her."
"Agent Mills?" A handsome Brad Pitt look-alike inquired as Regina stepped off the elevator on the eighth floor of a brownstone apartment building that faced the south side of Boro Grove. He extended his hand with a disarming smile, "I'm Graham Humbert. The others are inside the command post briefing room. Welcome to the Hamelin."
"Agent Humbert." She took his outstretched hand. "Regina Mills."
"Call me Graham, Commander."
"Done. What's on for this morning, Graham?"
She accompanied him into a large loft space that had been sectioned into work cubicles and equipment stations by shoulder-high particleboard partitions. The Secret Service's surveillance center occupied the entire floor directly below Emma Swan's penthouse suite. A small conference room enclosed by glass filled the far corner. As they approached the group of people seated within, Humbert consulted a printout in his hand.
"Intro and weekly briefing now. You are scheduled to meet with Cobra at 1100 in the oenthouse." He caught her faint expression of surprise and shrugged. "She won't talk to any of us. She says if she must discuss her plans, it will only be once, and with the team commander."
"It's her prerogative," Regina remarked with no inflection. As she walked, she made careful note of the banks of video monitors, multi-cassette recorders, computer simulators, and a large grid of New York City, digitally indexed and showing real-time placement of police vehicles. It was the same array of equipment used to monitor the White House and surrounds, and for the same reason. The president was vulnerable through his family. To avoid the appearance of that vulnerability, the first family needed to be shown living as normal a life as possible, and that did not include being shuttled about by armed guards. Hence, their protection needed to be provided at a distance, with as little visibility as possible. The semblance of freedom was a ruse they all conspired to perpetuate- everyone, apparently, except Emma Swan.
Humbert held the conference door open for her, and she strode through without a second's hesitation. This was her field to command.
"Good morning, people. I am Regina Mills." She stood at the head of the long table and glanced at each face, making brief eye contact with everyone, and allowing them a good look at her. When she was certain she had everyone's attention, she sat, stating briskly, "You have one hour to tell me everything I need to know about this operation, and everything you don't think I need to know as well. Let's get started."
At the end of an hour during which Regina listened, questioned, and issued a few directives, the agents who constituted her team sensed there was a new game in town. Everyone present took their responsibility seriously, for the sake of their future employment if for no other reason, and each had felt the frustration voiced earlier by the departing team commander. That dissatisfaction was heightened by the fact that they disliked Emma Swan, although none of them would every say so, even to each other. In the six months that the team had been charged with the protection of the first daughter, the obstructive, uncooperative attitude of Emma Swan had subtly undetermined the confidence of the operatives. An hour with Regina Mills provided them with the first jolt of optimism they'd felt in weeks.
"Allow me to summarize," Regina said as she stood and walked to the window looking down on the postage-stamp-sized private garden that formed the heart of Boro Grove. As she watched, an elderly woman unlocked the gate in the wrought-iron fence that surrounded the park. When she spoke again, her back was to the room, but her voice was clearly audible. "Ms. Swan resents our intrusions into her life. She resents our presence in every public and private moment of her day. Undoubtedly, she resents our observations of her personal liaisons and romantic encounters. I, for one, don't blame her."
She turned to the group with a small shrug. "The fact that Ms. Swan does not welcome our presence is immaterial. Our job is to see that she is able to carry on her life with a maximum degree of security as possible, no matter where she is, or what's she's doing, with the maximum degree of privacy achievable. She has decided to make this a game. We have to play, and, more importantly, we have to win. We don't get to throw in the towel or call foul if she changes the rules."
Every eye was on her as she placed her palms on the table and leaned forward. Her gaze was hard, her tone uncompromising as she finished, "There are no rain-outs. We can't expect her to help us win. We have to do that for ourselves. That's what we're getting paid for."
She smiled faintly as she took her seat again, suddenly understanding at least one of the reasons she had been given this assignment. "Remember that she is an uncooperative subject. Don't expect her to make your job easy; don't expect her to smile and say good morning. She has made it clear she does not want us around. She is not going to invite us along. We will switch from protective surveillance methods to investigative tactics, starting now. If she can't see you, it will be harder for her to lose you."
She looked pointedly at each of her agents, seeing them as Emma Swan must see them. Ivy League starched, polished and presentable. About as obvious as the proverbial bulls in the china shop.
"You need to be with her in order to protect her. So you've got to fit in where she travels. You have to function essentially undercover. Except at scheduled public functions where Ms. Swan is acting in some official capacity, no suits, no ties, no skirts. Street clothes. Preferably something appropriate for the type of locales she is known to frequent."
She saw the slight stiffening of a few shoulders and continued unperturbed. It was time to stop circling the primary problem. "For you men, I think a slightly longer hair length would be helpful for starters. It's time for you to stop looking like cops." She sipped the last of her coffee, gathering her papers with the other hand. "A little research might also be in order. I want a summary of every gay bar and restaurant in New York City. Hours of operation, type of clientele, traffic patterns in that area,et cetera. Start with the ones you know she's been to. Have it on my desk before the day is out. Know your subject, ladies and gentlemen, and you have won the first point."
Everyone relaxed slightly as she pulled open the door to the conference room. She paused at the still, turning back casually.
"By the way. Graham, does she know about the video equipment in her apartment?"
He looked at her in surprise. How had see noticed that on a quick walk through the monitoring section?
"I doubt it," he said quietly. If she were aware of the micro-cameras mounted in the ceiling of her loft, she would hardly be walking around nude the way she does.
"Turn them off," Regina said flatly. "Video the elevator, the building exits, fire escapes, and garage only."
"Uh, Commander, we had a specific directive from the White Hou-"
"Disable them. On my responsibility."
With that, she was gone, leaving them to wonder where one got the balls to countermand a direct order from the White House chief of staff.
