In the new Netflix hit show, The Night Agent, the premise revolves around a very secretive and little-known operation that is run out of a basement room inside The White House. It is called Night Action and is manned by the show’s star, Gabriel Basso, who plays Peter Sutherland. His job is to take incoming calls and assist whoever is on the other end of the line by directing them to the appropriate authorities. But who is calling Peter, and what is this clandestine agency that they have managed to build an entire terrific show out of? Also, who has the number to call it, and why? We decided to take a look into whether Night Action is a real thing and if such an exchange between Peter and a desperate Rose Larkin (Luciane Buchanan) is based on anything real, or if it is just a fictional creation taken from the novel, The Night Agent, by Matthew Quirk for the show.
Is Night Action a Real Agency?
According to the show, Night Action is a completely off-the-record agency that is intended for other disavowed members of agencies like the CIA, NSA, DEA, and FBI as a last resort when something has gone wrong. And while we can’t confirm for certain that there is a Night Action agency per se, there is a very real likelihood that there is some sort of off-the-books channel available to secret assets that may be in distress as Rose Larkin’s aunt and uncle are in The Night Agent. In the show, Peter tells White House Chief of Staff Diane Farr (Hong Chau) that he has never heard of the secret department, and she says that he shouldn’t and that it is even more secretive than Central Intelligence operations. Show creator Shawn Ryan and his group of showrunners do a commendable job of giving the show the same kind of feel you would have with some of the more traditional espionage-related dramas.
Researching the Night Action Agency
The source material for the show comes from author Matthew Quirk’s bestselling novel of the same name, which is very much along the lines of a Tom Clancy Jack Ryan-styled piece. Quirk recently commented about how he researched the cloak and dagger Night Action operation: “For research, I talked to my friend and his job actually turned out to be quite a bit more interesting and hush-hush than I had suspected, one of several factors which led me to place the novel’s action in the White House Situation Room. I also talked to FBI and CIA people about what happens on these night watches and in the Situation Room during a crisis, and how a counterintelligence scenario like the one in the book would play out.” So it looks like there is someone who occupies a very similar role in real life at the White House; it just may not be in the basement as portrayed on the show.
Is Peter Sutherland’s Night Agent Position Real?
In short, the answer is no. We couldn’t verify anything substantial to indicate that there is a position known as a Night Agent. But Quirk again used a friend who works for the FBI as a sort of template for what Peter Sutherland would look like in an interview with The Real Book Spy, stating, “The plot was inspired by a friend of mine in DC who worked an overnight shift at the FBI. He didn’t talk much about his job back then, but from what I was able to pick up, he was part of a night watch, charged with staying on top of any breaking crises and if need be waking up the director. That idea really stuck with me: a young guy sitting by a phone all night every night, waiting for his moment. What happens when the phone rings, and he’s suddenly dropped into the middle of an emergency, face-to-face with the most powerful people in Washington?”
So we feel we can safely say that The Night Agent is loosely based on a similar government agency, but that is as far as it goes. But if Night Action was real, we wouldn’t know about it, would we?
