Code Name: Genesis (Jameson Force Security #1)(11)

Cruce smiles casually. “Actually… we’re allowed to stay on protective detail only about five years. I’d already served four so, at best, I’d only have a year with him. It just seemed like an appropriate time to start a new career.”

“What happens once you’re off protective detail?” I ask curiously, since I don’t know a lot about the Secret Service.

“Back to a field office doing investigations. Mostly financial crime and fraud. And no offense to those who do that shit, but I’m not a cop. Don’t enjoy sitting behind a desk either.”

I nod in understanding and empathy. One of the reasons I wanted to expand Jameson into more covert and dangerous stuff is I’m getting a little bored myself. Much of running this business is sitting behind a desk. For a self-proclaimed adrenaline junkie, it’s not been my happiest times as the head of this company.

The Secret Service is not ordinarily where I’d recruit from for this new group I’m forming within Jameson. Sure, someone like Cruce is an incredible marksman and his attention to detail when it comes to protective services is unparalleled. He’d be a no brainer to put in Vegas with Rachel and let him protect high-profile celebrities.

But this new venture requires a bit more than that. Most of my recruits are going to be former Special Forces since I want their advanced fighting and weapons skills, knowledge of explosives, and actual battle experience, which means they’re cool under pressure.

Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have looked twice at someone applying from the Secret Service, but Cruce does have something that sets him apart from the rest of the organization.

“Tell me about the attempt on then Vice President Alexander’s life,” I say, and he blinks in surprise.

I watch him carefully to see if there’s any reticence because I can’t ever have one of my guys holding back on me.

He merely nods in understanding as to why I’d want to know more about it. After all, it made Cruce an international sensation and won him the undying gratitude of a soon-to-be president.

“There are a lot of details I can’t give you,” he begins by saying, and I don’t bother telling him I’ve got high enough security clearance with both the U.S. and British governments I could get all the details if I wanted.

But I don’t because I don’t care. I just want to hear him recount what happened, so I can I gauge just how traumatic it really was to him.

“Tell me what you can,” I assure him.

Cruce’s blue eyes—which are really an unusually light shade—darken quite a bit. His voice takes on an almost somber tone. “You know the set up… Jonathan Alexander—who was vice president at the time—was giving a graduation speech at Loyola, which is his alma mater. I was his primary and positioned off to his left, just behind him and the podium. When he finished the speech, I let him precede me off the stage and into the wings of the theater we were in. The plan was to take him straight to the limo waiting outside as he had a flight to catch. Two other agents were waiting by the double doors that led to the car.”

Cruce falls silent. He takes a moment to rotate his neck, as if it had tightened up on him. I can faintly hear bones pop.

His gaze comes to me and locks. “I don’t know how I saw it. I normally shouldn’t have been watching for it. My job was to consider everything that could be a potential threat to Cavalier.”

Cavalier being the code name the Secret Service used for the vice president. I press him to continue. “But you saw something.”

“I just had a feeling,” he says with a small shake of his head and a wry smile. “Don’t ask me how or why, but I looked at Nicholson instead.”

He was the Secret Service agent at the door. His name will be forever embedded in our history books as the man employed to protect the vice president and who also tried to kill him.

“It was a flash of silver, but it was shadowy. I couldn’t really tell what it was,” Cruce continues with a tone akin to amazement. “It could have been the silver wrapping on a stick of gum for all I knew, but my gut said it was something more sinister. I didn’t hesitate.”

No, he didn’t. In front of a video crew who had been filming a documentary on Vice President Alexander—as it was widely known at that point he was going to make a run for president—Cruce Britton hadn’t hesitated a moment in pulling out his service pistol and cranking four bullets into Special Agent Nicholson’s chest.

It was all caught on film, so there was no misinterpreting what Nicholson had planned. From his pocket, he’d pulled an eight-inch shiv, raised it high in the air, and had started lunging at Vice President Alexander when the first bullet caught him in the chest. It all came out in the investigation, but Nicholson held a deep-seated grudge against the current administration for its foreign war policies. Plus, he was a little touched in the head. He had hoped to make a statement by killing the vice president, and he had fully intended to die for the cause. There was a letter in his breast pocket.

What made Cruce’s actions so heroically phenomenal was it all went down in just a few seconds. He’d reacted on pure instinct. There hadn’t been anything that ever could have led him to believe one of his own would try to kill the VP.

“There are some who believe you acted too rashly,” I point out to Cruce. “That you had time to engage him in hand-to-hand combat to stop the attack, which would have saved his life.”