Mini Bar Spy (Audio Script)
FADE IN – LOW ROOM TONE: FAINT HUM OF A HOTEL HALLWAY, DISTANT ELEVATOR DINGS
NARRATOR
(low, reflective)
The envelope catches my eye. Plain white. Taped flat under the minibar drawer in Room 1224. Two words scrawled across it...
(pause)
Room Service.
SOFT CREAK of knees, subtle shift of movement
NARRATOR
My knees creak as I squat down. Thirty years of bending, reaching, planting bugs in hotel rooms. I peel the envelope free. My fingers recognize the handwriting before my brain does. Inside: a flash drive. No note.
NARRATOR
Then I spot it—tucked in the fold like an afterthought: You owe me.
BEAT. Slow inhale.
NARRATOR
My stomach tightens. That handwriting belongs to Walker. Last seen Istanbul, '99. A dead drop at Atatürk. He never checked in again.
SUBTLE CLICK of a minibar door opening and closing
NARRATOR
I pocket the drive and finish restocking. Vodka. Gin. Whiskey. Everything in its place. Including the new pinhole camera I wedge behind the base plate of the bedside lamp. The Watergate housekeeping never checks there. They used to tell me I had the perfect face for this job— Average. Anonymous. Forgettable. Nobody notices a guy in a hotel uniform pushing a minibar cart. Most guests don't even make eye contact.
BEAT
NARRATOR
Three decades in shadows. Watching. Waiting. Leaving no questions unanswered. That's the job. Which suits me fine.
ROOM TONE SHIFTS: service corridor, distant mechanical clank
NARRATOR
Back in the service corridor, sweat prickles at my temples. I slide open the false bottom of my cart. The tablet inside is Company issue— Encrypted. Off-grid. Built like a tank. Ten generations behind current tech.
SOFT CLICK as flash drive inserts
NARRATOR
The flash drive clicks into place. A folder labeled Cicada appears. Inside: six photos of my daughter. Not surveillance grabs. Professional. Military-grade. Long lens. Multiple vantage points. She's crossing her university quad. Sitting with friends outside the library. Biking alone at dusk— Her silhouette unmistakable to me. One shows her entering an unmarked building off Massachusetts Avenue. The CIA recruitment center, though it doesn't advertise itself. The last image: She's laughing with a man. Early thirties. Too clean-cut. His stance screams field officer— Weight balanced on the balls of his feet. Eyes scanning perimeters. Beneath the photos: a redacted file. Subject flagged for: "second-generation clearance potential." Current status: "Active recruitment."
FLICKERING HUM of overhead fluorescents
NARRATOR
I lean against the cinderblock wall. The fluorescents flicker above me, casting my shadow in pulses. My mouth tastes like copper. She doesn't know what I do. She thinks I fix hotel elevators. The flash drive shouldn't exist. Walker shouldn't either—declared dead fifteen years ago. But the file metadata says it was modified Tuesday. Someone's watching. Not just her. Me. I pull the guest logs for 1224. Fake name. Bad ID. Burner card. But a courier picked up a laundry bag hours after checkout— Signed with the initials: A.W.
SOFT BEAT
NARRATOR
Walker reaching out through an ops dead drop means one thing:
(low)
The Company is cleaning house.
SFX: DOOR quietly opens, soft footfalls
NARRATOR
At 2:17 a.m., I slip into the security office. The night guard is on break—always is between 2:15 and 2:30. I loop the hallway cameras. Spoof the motion sensors. Ghost my digital footprint. Moves so practiced, my muscles remember them better than my brain.
SOFT RUSTLE: envelope retrieved
NARRATOR
In the suite-level access closet, behind a loose ceiling tile— I pull out a slim envelope marked "Dental." Inside: a flip phone. No GPS. No camera. Just one programmed number.
PHONE DIALS. THREE RINGS. Then: CLICK.
WOMAN
(flat, emotionless)
Go.
NARRATOR
(tense)
They tagged my daughter.
Silence. Then—
WOMAN
(same flat tone)
You've been flagged for exposure. She's insurance. You know the drill.
CLICK. LINE DEAD. CRACK of phone snapping shut.
NARRATOR
My hand trembles as I snap the phone in half.
AMBIENCE: Morning birdsong, faint breeze
NARRATOR
Dawn breaks as I park across from her dorm. Cherry blossoms dust the quad pink. I sit inside my car. Hands wrapped around a coffee gone cold. She emerges at 7:40. Same as every Thursday. She has her mother's walk— Shoulders back, chin up, every step certain. A coffee in hand. Her backpack slung off one shoulder. She always loved the cherry blossoms when she was little. Used to press the fallen ones in books.
SOFT SHIFT in tone
NARRATOR
Then I see him. The man from the photo. Not tailing her. Waiting. She spots him. Smiles. They talk, heads bent close. He passes her something. A book—too slim for a textbook. Field manual, maybe. She tucks it into her bag.
BEAT
NARRATOR
It hits me like a punch I didn't see coming. Walker's message wasn't a threat. It was a warning. The Company's not just watching her. They've already got her. All the years I kept her away from this life. All the secrets I thought I was protecting her from... And now she's walking in the front door. Invited.
CAR INTERIOR AMBIENCE fades out, new ambient tone: storage unit space
NARRATOR
There's one safe house left I trust. Storage unit off I-95. Registered to a name that doesn't exist. Inside: everything I've kept. Six passports. Cash in three currencies. A Beretta I haven't fired in a decade. And a lead-lined case with three backup drives— My insurance policy. Surveillance clips. Intercepts. Blackmail. Leverage. Every dirty secret I've collected since Bucharest.
DELIBERATE PAUSE
NARRATOR
My hand hovers over the case. Then I grab one drive. And leave the rest.
LOW WHIRR of old server fans, digital beeps
NARRATOR
Back at the Watergate, I access the terminal in the maintenance room. The chair creaks under my weight. I run the malware I coded during the second Bush administration. It cascades through the system, creating a ghost outage. The Company's archive is buried beneath layers of security. But I built some of those layers. I know where the bodies are buried— Because I put them there.
STEADY KEYSTROKES
NARRATOR
I upload the virus. Each keystroke deliberate. Heavy. Every file I touched. Every mission I ran. Every identity I used.
(beat)
Deleted. She'll never be connected to what I did. Not through a paper trail. Not through me.
SOFT STROKE of a final keypress
NARRATOR
I drop a single line of code into the void. A message for her— If she ever goes deep enough to find it:
(quiet)
Some ghosts choose to disappear. I erase myself from the machine.
TRANSITION—CAR STARTS. FADES INTO QUIET WOODS.
NARRATOR
That night, I check out of the Watergate. For good.
AMBIENCE: birdsong, soft wind. Cabin ambience. Dog collar jingle.
NARRATOR
Now I'm in a cabin three states away. No cell service. No Wi-Fi. Wood stove heat. A dog that watches me like I might vanish at any moment. The mailbox stands at the end of a gravel drive. I check it once a week.
ENVELOPE SOUNDS, PAPER UNFOLDING
NARRATOR
Today, there's an envelope inside. A birthday card. Store-bought. Inside— A pressed cherry blossom. Four words in my daughter's hand:
(soft, steady)
Still your girl. Promise.
BEAT
NARRATOR
I stand in the spring sunlight, reading it over and over. Feeling the shape of what's not written. I don't know if it means she's out, or she's in. But she has a chance at her own story now. Not one written in shadows.
