In The Night Agent, an experienced Secret Service agent, Erik Monks, joins Arrington on Maddie Redfield’s detail, but Arrington later finds out that he is keeping a few things from her.
The director of the Secret Service, Ben Almora, informs Chelsea Arrington that he is pulling one of the officers from her team to have him join the investigation of Jamie Hawkins’ death.
Erik Monks will be the replacement. Monks is quite popular among Secret Service agents. He became a hero after taking a bullet for the previous president of the country.
Arrington too knows who he is, and though she is worried, Almora assures her that he is rehabbing and getting back to 100%. Almora is allowing Monks to be on this detail because he wants Monks to restart with something easy and out of the spotlight.
Monks and Arrington’s partnership
Monks attempts to get along with Arrington, but they start off on the wrong foot. Monks soon realizes that Arrington’s approach to her detail is quite different from his. She is friends with Maddie, the person she is protecting. Monks says he will never opt to form such a bond.
When Arrington asks Monks how did someone who saved the president ended up on this detail, he suggests that this is the Secret Service’s way of easing an old man back into the job.
At a bar, Maddie gets attacked by a boy who hates her father. The Secret Service agents are not supposed to allow anyone to even touch Maddie, but Monks messes up. He gets shoved down by that young boy, who proceeds to grab Maddie’s hair.
Monks does take the boy down, but way too late. Arrington sees this as a huge mishap, and she blames Monks for it.
As time goes by, Monks and Arrington improve their partnership. When Arrington loses Maddie, Almora turns the tables and puts Monks in charge of Maddie’s kidnapping case.
Almora intends to remove Arrington from the team, but Monks insists on having her. Whenever Arrington questions her seniors, he defends her and tries to find a way to get both Arrington and the seniors on the same page.
How does Almora know Monks?
Arrington reports every bit of the bar incident to Almora. She doesn’t refrain from telling Almora that Monks was behind the mishap.
Arrington expects Almora to get Monks out of her team right away, but Almora instead tells her to give Monks a few days to settle in. He reminds Arrington that before taking a bullet, Monks was one of the best Secret Service agents.
During the conversation, he also reveals that they were partners once and that he learned a lot from him. He likes to think that Arrington can also learn a thing or two from Monks.
Monks’ dark past
After hearing about Almora and Monks being partners, Arrington contacts a friend from the CIA to dig more into him. She eventually learns that Monks is an addict who was forced into rehab.
The next day, she starts searching his room for pills to see if he is taking any. She says if he wasn’t their boss’ old partner, the Secret Service wouldn’t have put him on any detail.
Monks then decides to disclose everything. He says getting shot led him to a painkiller addiction. The officials at the Secret Service said if Monks will stay clean for a year, they will allow him to come back and start from the bottom.
Monks admits that he is a drug addict, and he doesn’t mind if Arrington tells the vice president. He even offers to help Arrington as a mentor so that she can rise through the ranks, but she declines.
Later, when Monks and Arrington search for Maddie, Monks opens up about his kid and more about his past. Monks’ daughter has been living with his ex-wife for a while. After going to rehab, Monks didn’t get to see her much, but now that he is clean, he has a chance to take her camping.
Seeing his daughter is something he has to earn by staying clean and keeping his job. The world sees him as a hero, but not his daughter.
Talking about his drug addiction, Monks says he was grinding to get back at the job. To make the pain in his shoulder go away, he started taking pills. He took them daily, and that led to his downfall.
Getting clean was hard for Monks, but he has his Secret Service training to lean on. He believes in protecting the institution and being part of the Secret Service makes him feel part of a sacred tribe.
Monks’ death
Maddie Redfield’s kidnapper, Colin Worley, sent several videos of Maddie online, demanding a confession from Vice President Ashley Redfield for the metro bombings.
Maddie convinced Worley to send a video to Redfield personally. She tricked him and gave him Arrington’s number. In the video, she gave hints about her location by tapping on the necklace that Arrington gave her.
Peter, Rose, Arrington, and Monks made their way to that location. They managed to catch Colin Worley. It turns out that another attacker was on the field.
Gordon Wick had sent one of his assassins. Though Monks spots the shooter and they give her a fight, Monks gets shot and dies on the field. The shooter is later taken out by Rose, who surprises her from behind and pushes her off the ledge to kill her.
Also Read: The Night Agent review: Generic yet so entertaining