Ripped from a novel

I’ve showcased James Patterson’s quote about Vital Deception once or twice or a million times before, and, yup, I’m gonna do it again. It reads, in part, “The story feels like it comes right out of today’s headlines.”

Well, let’s flip that backwards, because I just read a headline that felt like it comes right out of my story. 

As reported by the Wall Street Journal, Fox Business, Insider, Times of Israel (in other words, multiple sources, although to be fair, many of those sources merely refer back to the WSJ), CIA Director William Burns made a covert trip to Saudi Arabia to meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. In April. In Jeddah.

I confess to a miss on the location. In Vital Deception, the meeting between the D/CIA and MBS was scheduled in Riyadh, not Jeddah, but I got the rest of it correct – a year in advance!

You might ask, “Is this a plot spoiler?”

No, not really. Sort of. Maybe kind of.

But if you’ve read the book, maybe you’re also wondering, like I am, who else was at the real-life meeting that was ripped from my novel!