The Man Who Cut His Own Strings

Washington had always been a city built on performance. Every word measured, every movement intentional, every silence just as important as the things spoken aloud. To survive here was to master the act of appearing in control, even when the walls were closing in.

Jessica knew this better than most. And as she sat in a coffee shop near the National Press Building, she could already feel the shape of the game changing.

A storm was coming.

The street outside bustled with aides and reporters, their movements brisk, their faces etched with the quiet urgency of people who lived in the orbit of power. She stirred her coffee absently, glancing up from the newspaper she had barely read.

Across from her, Olivia sat with her laptop open, pulling up the live feed for the press briefing. The White House Communications Director was speaking first, setting the tone, establishing the message, an expected dance before the main event.

But it wasn’t the spin that mattered. It was the delivery.

Jessica sipped her coffee, watching the screen intently. Then the President walked in. The room went still for a fraction of a second too long. It was subtle, almost imperceptible. It was the kind of thing you wouldn’t notice unless you were looking for it.

He stepped to the podium with the same polished air as always, but something was off. Olivia leaned forward slightly, muttering under her breath, “He looks… different.”

Jessica nodded slowly. “Not physically. In the way he carries himself.”

The President smiled, greeted the room, and launched into his prepared remarks. A statement on foreign policy. Routine, predictable. But Jessica wasn’t listening for the words. She was watching everything else. His pauses were just a fraction too long. His eyes didn’t quite align with his tone. And then, the slip.

A reporter asked a question about recent U.S.-Russia diplomatic relations. The President responded smoothly at first. He spoke about “new opportunities,” “strengthening alliances,” “bridging past tensions.” But then he said something that should have never left his lips.

“As you know, we’ve always been open to the idea of integrating Russia more closely with NATO. After all, our administration has long stood for unity in Europe, ever since my time as Secretary of State.”

Jessica felt her stomach drop. Olivia’s fingers went still on her keyboard. The President had never been Secretary of State. It was a small mistake. A strange, momentary lapse. Something easily dismissed. Except people at this level of power don’t make mistakes like that.

Olivia was already typing furiously, running the transcript against past speeches, checking linguistic patterns, cadence, sentence structures.

Jessica leaned back, exhaling slowly. “That wasn’t just a bad memory.”

Olivia shook her head, her voice edged with something sharp. “No. That was programming failure.”

Jessica’s jaw tightened. Confirmation. Dominion hadn’t just compromised the President. They had rewritten him. The president was still compromised.

* * *

While Olivia tracked the speech, Jessica and Leanna took a cab to a quiet bar in Foggy Bottom. The place was dimly lit, frequented by career intelligence officers and retired spooks who had traded clandestine operations for whiskey and quiet regrets.

Agent Samuel Richter was waiting for them in a back booth, his posture relaxed but his eyes sharp, assessing them the second they walked in. He was older now, a little more gray at the temples, but the same controlled presence remained.

He nodded once as Jessica slid into the booth across from him. “Didn’t expect a follow-up so soon.”

Jessica smirked faintly. “Told you I wasn’t chasing shadows.”

He exhaled, studying her for a long moment. “You look good. Considering.”

Jessica’s smirk faded slightly. “You, too. Considering.”

Leanna took a seat beside her, arms folded, watchful.

Richter leaned back, swirling the amber liquid in his glass. “So. You said you found something solid.”

Jessica didn’t waste time. “We did.” She slid the Stasi file they had retrieved in Berlin across the table. Richter opened it slowly, his expression unreadable as he scanned the pages.

After a long silence, he exhaled sharply. “Where the hell did you get this?”

Jessica’s voice was steady. “Berlin. A Stasi vault that should have been forgotten.”

Richter looked up, his jaw tightening. “This shouldn’t exist.”

Jessica nodded. “That’s the problem.”

Leanna leaned forward, her tone sharp. “You pointed us toward Kurtz. Whether you meant to or not.”

Richter’s expression flickered something like regret or recognition, it was hard to tell. “I figured he might know something. Didn’t think you’d find this.”

“How much do you know about this,” Leanna asked?

He closed the folder carefully, slower this time. “Enough to know that whoever killed that Soviet operative in Belize did it for a reason.”

Jessica exchanged a glance with Leanna.

Richter continued, his voice low. “There was a guy. Edward Cross. Intelligence analyst. He started digging into irregularities in White House background checks about six months ago.”

Jessica frowned. “What kind of irregularities?”

Richter tapped the folder. “The kind that don’t make sense. Security clearance histories that changed overnight. Background records that had no logical gaps, except they felt wrong.”

Leanna narrowed her eyes. “And now?”

Richter’s gaze darkened. “Cross vanished three weeks ago.”

Jessica exhaled slowly, feeling the pieces click into place. The speech today. The financial connections. The missing analyst who saw too much. It was all the same operation.

She closed her eyes briefly, then opened them again. “If Cross is still alive, we need to find him.”

Richter hesitated. “And if he’s not?”

Jessica’s expression hardened. “Then we find out what he knew before Dominion erases it.”

Richter exhaled sharply. “You’re walking into a firestorm.”

Jessica smirked, her voice low. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

The silence that followed was thick with understanding. Richter glanced once more at the file, then nodded.

“I’ll make some calls.”

Jessica nodded back. “Do it quietly.”

Richter smirked faintly. “There’s no such thing in this town.”

Jessica stood, sliding her coat back on, the conversation already settling into the back of her mind. “Then let’s hope we move faster than they do.”

As she and Leanna stepped out into the cold D.C. night, Jessica felt the familiar weight of the hunt settle back into place. They weren’t just gathering pieces anymore. They were playing against the architects of the game itself. And somewhere in the back of her mind, the thought gnawed at her, the President, the conditioning, the illusion of autonomy. What if he wasn’t an outlier? What if he was like her? What if she wasn’t free at all, but just another puppet that believed she cut her own strings?

She said nothing. Just pulled her coat tighter against the wind and kept walking.