Special Agent Tucker Minnick and a mixed delegation from the FBI and State Department arrive at the Avallon via a staff entrance to avoid disturbing guests, signaling that the hotel is still operating normally. Tucker, reflecting on the perilous beauty of the West Virginia landscape and on a prior Texas posting, steels himself for a mission he recognizes as an exile assignment from Hoover.

Led through the ornate, maze-like corridors, the group—Pennybacker, Minnick, Agents Hugh Calloway and Pony Harris—note the hotel’s poised staff and the unsettling presence of the mineral springs’ smell. Tucker keeps the team disciplined amid staff attention toward Hugh, the only visibly Black federal agent in the guest areas. They enter the Smith Library for the meeting with local officials, immigration officers, and Edgar David Gilfoyle, the hotel’s owner-representative.

During genteel small talk, a dignified waiter serves cake and drinks, and June Hudson, the Avallon’s confident general manager, arrives with three obedient dachshunds. June explains the hotel’s resourceful method of making glaze from reclaimed jam jars, underscoring wartime frugality. Pennybacker pivots to praise the hotel’s suitability for national service, but June, only informed the night before, flatly refuses the State Department’s request.

Tucker recognizes that Gilfoyle has left the burden of breaking the news to federal agents. Rising to cut through the evasion, Tucker asserts authority and delivers a blunt, ordered list of requirements: immediate eviction of current guests; Border Patrol perimeter towers; a Swiss liaison; comprehensive staff vetting; arrival of 300 foreign nationals on Wednesday for an expected stay through April 21; and FBI control of communications. He emphasizes that the decision has already been made above them.

June reads the file and sees the presidential signature. Subsequent pages reveal that the “foreign nationals” are Axis diplomats and notable figures—German, Japanese, Italian, Hungarian, Bulgarian—such as Takeo Nishimura, Friedrich Wolfe, and Erich von Limburg-Stirum. The language of “assembly” and “safeguard” replaces detention, framing it as diplomatic reciprocity. June is appalled, mindful of staff with personal losses and of her own anxieties for Sandy Gilfoyle, who is in uniform and out of touch.

Pennybacker cites precedent and mentions that the Greenbrier is already participating, with the Homestead also enlisted, confirming a broader federal program. Realizing the Avallon’s allotment is one segment of a larger list, June accepts that war has arrived in full. Feeling betrayed by Gilfoyle’s delay, she stands to begin the massive transition. The dachshunds rise with her, and Tucker gives a small nod, recognizing her decision to act under orders she cannot refuse. June ends by stating they have a lot of work to do.