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Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, Happy Holidays!

It was a freezing December morning, just a couple of weeks before Christmas, when the course of my life changed within a single conversation.

Juliana stirred beside me, buried under a thick comforter, her blonde hair a wild halo against the pillow. We were newly married, still in that stunned, grateful phase where waking up next to the right person feels like winning the lottery every day (it still does). I checked the clock. 8:00 a.m. I was about to hang up the phone, chalking it up to an early telemarketer, when the voice on the other stopped me cold.

It was Supervisory Special Agent Gene McClelland.

“Don’t bother getting dressed up,” he said. “Just lace up your shoes. I’m parked out front.”

That was all.

I scrambled into jeans and a George Washington University Law sweatshirt, heart pounding, mind sprinting through worst-case scenarios. FBI supervisors don’t come to you. They summon. If your boss showed up unannounced at your house on a Sunday morning, you’d panic. If you are the boss, picture the chairman of your board of directors. If you’re the chairman—imagine the President of the United States idling at the curb.

This was worse than any of that.

Our cramped one-bedroom sat a stone’s throw from the Capitol. I slipped outside into the December wind, doing a quick sweep of rooftops and balconies out of habit. Nothing. Just a cardinal perched on a wire and a lone sedan idling on the street. Gene’s.

I opened the passenger door. He didn’t bother with small talk.

“Have you ever heard of Robert Hanssen?”

“No,” I said. “Should I have?”

Gene smiled. “That’s good. That’s why we chose you.”

That December morning, so ordinary in appearance, but world-shifting in impact, catapulted me into the undercover operation that defined my life.

And every year around this time, when the air turns sharp and the world slows down, I think about that morning. I think about the unexpected summons that changed my stars…and the opportunities that still arrive the same way: unannounced, unwarned, and exactly when they’re meant to.

This is the week when I force myself to step out of the fray. I take a breath. I look at my life’s blessings—my incredible family, long walks with my wife of twenty-five years, phone calls with friends I don’t see nearly enough, a good book by a quiet fire, bourbon with a best friend, my kids’ hugs, a real dinner with real conversation. I shut down the computers, power off the iPads, and step away from Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, X, and yes…even this newsletter.

But before I disappear from cyberspace for a few days, I needed to send this.

Thank you.

This newsletter exists because of you—my readers, my community, my fellow spy hunters. When I launched this project, I envisioned it as the living companion to Spies, Lies, and Cybercrime: a place where the book could continue to breathe, evolve, and grow. A space where I could tell new stories, share actionable intelligence, and equip people who care about protecting themselves and their world from cybercrime, scams, and espionage.

You seized that vision. You’ve allowed me to continue the conversation.

This year, the newsletter grew by 980%. That number still looks like a typo. But it’s real—and it’s because you showed up, shared it, forwarded it, talked about it, and made this community something fierce and meaningful (please don’t stop!)

And when Spies, Lies, and Cybercrime launched this fall, you propelled it straight onto the Bestseller list in its first week. That wasn’t the result of marketing dollars or industry machinery. That was you. A group of intelligent, curious, generous readers who believed in the mission and carried it forward.

Through this newsletter, the book continues to live. It breathes through you. Together, we’ve built a small but formidable battalion of well-trained, well-informed, occasionally wise-cracking spy hunters who are making the world, and ourselves, a little safer from the cybercriminals who attack from the dark web.

Before I step offline and vanish into my holiday hideout, let me say it plainly:

Thank you for an extraordinary year.

Thank you for your trust.

Thank you for your curiosity.

Thank you for your belief in this mission.

And thank you for being the unexpected summons at my door—the kind that changes a life.

I’ll see you on the other side of the holidays. We’ve got more stories to tell, more intel to share, and more spies (both real and metaphorical) to hunt before they hunt us.

Until then, Merry Christmas. May your holiday be safe, merry and bright.

-Eric

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