Savage Road

by Chris Hauty

  Though her actions had led to a child abuser’s apprehension, Hayley was charged with a Class A misdemeanor—burglary of a vehicle—and expelled from the college for cheating. Local authorities informed her military superiors, who initiated her dishonorable discharge from the army. Throughout the controversy, Hayley remained silent. Only after three days of agonizing guilt did Latetia Wilson come forward and reveal the truth to the dean. Other students in the cheating plot followed that noble example. After much discussion, the punishment meted out to the students involved was a mandatory do-over of the coursework. Absolved of all wrongdoing, Hayley never spoke of the matter again.

  When confronted with two evils of unequal severity, Hayley is hardwired to run at the greater calamity. The chaotic street scenes she passes on her walk home convince her of the dire need for uncovering the true identity of Cyber Jihad. Monroe’s worsening emotional condition is a concern. But the episode can be written off as an aberration, a momentary falter. Adopting a wait-and-see attitude is warranted. If the situation worsens, Hayley is confident a fail-safe she has in place will prevent outright operational failure.

  As she enters her building Hayley resolves to contact April as soon as she’s upstairs. Unlocking the door to her apartment, she hears her work phone chime, notifying her of the receipt of an email. Checking her phone, Hayley does not recognize the sender of the message. Who the hell is the.truth.is.an.act.of.love@gmail.com?

  She opens the email and reads the simple message: Thought you would be interested in this, followed by a smiley face emoji. There are four attachments to the email. Given the risk of malware, Hayley decides to scan them first with more robust threat-detection programs on her laptop.

  Sitting down at her dining table, with an accelerating heart rate, she peruses the classified documents from the Pentagon revolving around the death of her father. Within seconds, Hayley comes to understand a few alarming facts. The military knows much more about the details of Tommy Chill’s death than previously admitted. A cursory review of the official incident report reveals that her father’s death was caused by friendly fire, in this case, the explosion of a missile fired by a Marine Hornet jet. And because the email is signed “CJ,” Hayley can confidently assume the sender of these Pentagon documents to be Cyber Jihad.

  * * *

  HAYLEY WAS EIGHT when her father died, returning from the Iraq war in a sealed, metal coffin. Her reaction to the finality of his death was primal rage. In her emotional outburst, she destroyed most of the interior of a modest funeral home and all of its furnishings. The only sizable item in the building she didn’t demolish was Tommy’s casket.

  After reading twice through the classified documents sent to her by Rafi Zamani, Hayley sits very still. For more than an hour, she barely moves a muscle. She has given the country everything, including her father. The Pentagon has repaid that sacrifice with a despicable and cowardly lie. The fury grows. It sinks a taproot, sprouting branches that grow outward and extend to every part of her being. The emotions within her continue to spread from its core and to every fiber of her being, becoming sturdy and unyielding rage.

  The hour of stillness is over. It’s just past midnight. Most of the city’s residents are preoccupied with the identity of Cyber Jihad, and who he/she/they might strike next. Hayley Chill has other thoughts. Like the inconsolable eight-year-old version of herself, unable to close yawning grief over losing a beloved parent, Hayley craves destruction.

  6

  LOSING IT

  Thursday, 7:42 a.m. Where the fuck is Hayley Chill? Driving to Fort Meade from her place in northwest Washington—morning commute traffic snarled as usual—April Wu rechecks her phone. Nothing. She’s received no message from Hayley, who has been MIA for the last twelve hours. Why hasn’t the White House aide responded to multiple calls and texts? Not for the first time, April worries the mysterious, dark-complexioned man they pursue has emerged from his virtual stronghold and physically harmed her friend. Resisting an urge to contact Andrew Wilde, the army lieutenant joins a long line of vehicles waiting at Gate 1 off Savage Road. In the two years she has been at Cyber Command, she has never seen such a long queue in the morning. April assumes the backup is due to the cyberattack of Pentagon servers the previous day. At a dead stop behind more than three dozen vehicles waiting to pass through security, she shifts her BMW M5 into neutral. And what is up with the weather? The forecasters predict temperatures and humidity readings in the nineties.

  After twenty minutes of delay, April is finally able to show her credentials to one of the armed guards at Gate 1, who checks her name against a paper employee roster. Identification established, the army lieutenant enters the vast lot, parks, and makes the long trek to the building that is the headquarters to both NSA and Cyber Command. Her irritation rockets when she finds a sizable crowd of people waiting to enter. Nearly all of the individuals standing around are in military uniform.

  April stops and gapes at the bizarre scene.

  “What’s going on, sir?” she asks a US Army colonel, saluting him.

  “Security issue. They can’t let us into the building until more of the DoD personnel servers are back online.”

  “That’s bullshit, sir, excuse my language.”

  “Apologies unnecessary, Lieutenant.” He gestures at the civilian employees of the National Security Agency entering the building after the customary security check. Because of the corruption of Pentagon servers, security guards delay the admittance of Cyber Command’s military personnel. “Beyond all recognition,” says the colonel.

  April folds her arms across her chest and waits, anxious to get inside and continue the hunt for Cyber Jihad. A hot sun beats down on her as the precious minutes tick past.

  * * *

  SHE STARTED AT Darlington House. Why not? One basement bar with exposed brick walls is as good as any other. If pressed to examine more subconscious motivations, Hayley would have to confess the hope of encountering the fireman. Could Sam McGovern have saved her from an impulse to demolish everything in sight? Perhaps. But Hayley wasn’t in the self-examination mode. She walked from her apartment to the joint off Dupont Circle—sitting at the bar without comment or small talk—and ordered one tequila shot after another. Such is her modus operandi. No matter how much she drinks, Hayley doesn’t get drunk in the conventional, stumbling manner. Her inebriation is like an improvised shelter. She takes cover there, hunkering down, emerging only to do battle. In this case, war comes soon enough.

  The brawl was by the book. One ass-grabbing mook was rendered unconscious, his arm broken in two places. That guy had two friends who tried to intervene on his behalf. The ensuing altercation upended several tables. A classic Fender guitar was ripped down from its place of honor over the bar, but witnesses can’t recall by whom. Only after these highlights did Hayley stalk out of Darlington House, shortly after midnight. Despite the bar fight, she had failed to quench her thirst for destruction. Billy Esposito, the bartender, refrained from calling the cops. Had the police arrested her in the altercation’s aftermath, Hayley would’ve lost both her White House job and her covert position with the deeper state.

  Long carrying the torch for the White House aide, Billy Esposito spared Hayley from that ignominy. The guy whose arm Hayley broke deserved getting his ass kicked. Threat of a sexual battery charge sent him and his friends packing. Hayley barreled out of the joint not long after, refusing Billy’s pleas to stay, her rage unabated. The Darlington House bartender recalled, of course, seeing her with another regular only a few nights earlier. A voice mail was left on Sam’s cell phone. The fireman, home from several days on duty, was fast asleep. There was no one, then, to stop Hayley from doing what Hayley does in this worst-case mode. She would never set foot again in the bar. Never know how the bartender protected her from arrest. Billy Esposito’s affections for Hayley Chill will go stubbornly unrequited. His consolation prize, three months later, will be matching all six Powerball numbers and sharing the $43 million prize wit
h four other players.

  * * *

  AND AFTER ALL that, while April is cooling her heels outside the Big Four at Fort Meade the next morning, Hayley finds herself sitting on a curb in front of a midcentury classic brick, two-story home on Fifth Street in Arlington, Virginia. The deeper state operative isn’t entirely sure how she came to be at this place. Had she grabbed a ride share? Or did she take the Metro and walk? By now, the consciousness-annihilating effects of the alcohol Hayley consumed have mostly worn off. The memory of all that transpired the night before is patchy, covered in a sheen of muted shame. Some homeless dudes harassed her on the street, not long after she had left Darlington House. Those fellows didn’t fare so well. Hayley can remember a run-in with two district cops but, with her training, their pursuit didn’t last more than a few minutes. She also seems to remember an incident on the steps of the Capitol Building involving two similarly inebriated leathernecks fresh off Parris Island. With their combined forces, the drunks put four official government cars in the parking lot on their roofs. But Hayley can’t remember how or when she separated herself from the boot Marines.

  How did she come to Arlington? She can’t remember. And why is it so hot and muggy out? With the thin clarity of a morning’s sobriety and a few more moments of reflection, Hayley recalls the purpose of her visit. The awfulness of what she learned in the leaked documents adheres to her like the stink of death. That sensation jogs her memory. Knowing her father was blown to bits by a US jet fighter is almost too much to bear, despite the night’s futile exercise in alcohol abuse. She still wants to break things. She remains insane with anger.

  Hayley stands. She turns and faces the home. Charlie Hicks lives here. Having determined his current address in her early vetting of her father’s war buddy, Hayley has come to the house like a homing pigeon returning to roost. How could he have not known the truth when she first interviewed him? The veteran’s post-traumatic stress disorder notwithstanding, Hayley is hell-bent on confrontation with Hicks. No one needs to tell her the idea is probably cruel and definitely wrongheaded. She’s sober enough now to know that much.

  Hayley heads up the walkway toward the front door. She’s sure she sees a curtain move, suggesting the occupant has been observing her all this time and steps back away from the window at her approach. She fist knocks on the wood door. Three times, like rifle shots.

  She is in no mood for waiting.

  “Mr. Hicks! Sir, I know you’re in there!”

  Hayley listens for a response and hears none.

  “Charlie Hicks? I need to talk to you!”

  Nothing comes from the other side of the door. But his presence is strong as if the man is standing there on the porch next to her.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asks. “Why didn’t you tell me my father died by friendly fire?”

  She hears a shuffling of feet from the other side of the door. His morose, disembodied voice seems as if from beyond the grave.

  “I’m sorry, Hayley. Truly, I… am… so sorry.”

  “Did you know?” Her question comes with the edge of a rusty fishing knife, ugly and sharp.

  “Me? We never knew anything! Sure, we heard rumors and such. But with ten different things just like what happened to your daddy happening every day of that engagement, no one had time to get the facts straight about anything. We were told it was an IED. Then we were told it was an RPG. Then it was a truck bomb. Now you’re telling me it was one of our birds? Who knows? What’s ever true in a hellhole like Fallujah?” The voice falters, then gains a measure of strength. “I… I can’t tell you how sorry I am. I just didn’t think I should’ve burdened you with something I didn’t know for a fact.”

  “Do I strike you like someone who can’t deal with a little uncertainty?” Hayley asks. “All I want is the truth!”

  With shaky voice, he says, “I have nothing for you. I have nothing…”

  Not for the first time, Hayley has the sense that she’s way out of line. God, what is she doing here? The man is obviously suffering. Coming here was a mistake.

  She loiters on the porch for another moment, unsure how to end this travesty. Hayley cannot think of another time she felt so bad about her conduct.

  “I’m going to go now,” she says to the door.

  “Okay,” comes the relieved voice on the other side.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Hicks. I promise I won’t bother you again.”

  “Okay.”

  The man’s voice is small, vulnerable, and terribly sad.

  Hayley turns, steps down off the porch, and heads for the sidewalk. Her mind works furiously to process every moment of what just transpired. Perhaps ten seconds elapsed since the conclusion of her strained conversation with Hicks through a closed door. She stops, rooted in place at the end of the walkway, paralyzed by the belated realization that Charlie Hicks knew it was a US fighter jet that blew her dad to bits. In her brief conversation with him, Hayley can’t remember saying anything more than the incident being “friendly fire.”

  * * *

  THURSDAY, 9:10 A.M. Rafi Zamini figures he doesn’t have to worry about Hayley Chill for a while. The documents he dropped on her, by his calculation, have cut her heart out. Knives and guns are for dunces. Information is the weapon of the twenty-first century. Truth can be split, like the atom, and weaponized. He finally heard from the Boss, of course, whose agitation over the unanticipated attack on the DoD servers was even higher than for his unauthorized compressor station exploit. Rafi doesn’t care. Unable to confirm attribution for the escalating cyberattacks, the US government is completely paralyzed. The entire country is a quivering mess, pissing itself with fear and anxiety. And all because of him.

  But who is Hayley Chill? Despite his best efforts and unlimited access to classified government networks and databases, Rafi was able to discover only superficial information about the White House aide. Not that it makes much difference. With the need for his services nearing an end, Rafi doesn’t plan on hanging around town for long. He packed and shipped off all but the most essential of his belongings. An airline ticket was purchased. Only a few more days now and then he’s gone.

  Rafi hurries the dog through its morning routine. Late last night, he received word from his real employer to come in for work, which is unusual. He relishes his freedom as a contractor, spending more time working at home or in coffee shops than on-site. But the late-night summons is proof of his tremendous success. Long lines at ATMs, gas stations, and grocery stores suggest the same thing: he has single-handedly hacked the entire country. Freaking hilarious! As he walks his dog around the block, every pathetic loser he sees wrapped up in his or her little moment of inconvenience is just more confirmation of Rafi’s triumph. Sucks that he can’t tell anybody about it!

  A little under an hour later, he has ridden his Ducati over the river and parked in one of the big lots at work. It’s a five-minute walk to the building. With the freakishly hot weather, Rafi feels himself becoming uncomfortably sweaty under his motorcycle jacket. Shedding the heavy, armored jacket and throwing it over his shoulder, he reveals his standard uniform: Manchester United jersey, black Adidas trainers, and TCX Street Ace motorcycle boots. Like one of his biggest heroes, Steve Jobs, he embraces the concept of a signature “look.”

  Approaching the building entrance, he sees a mob of people waiting to enter through security, most in one military uniform or another. Rafi figured blowing up the DoD servers would delay personnel from US Cyber Command entering the building today. It amuses him to see the enlisted oafs waiting under the increasingly hot sun, glaring with resentment at the civilian NSA employees strolling into the Big Four unhindered. Rafi fails to clock the Asian American army lieutenant facing in another direction as he walks past.

  And, for that same reason, April Wu happens not to see the darkly complexioned young man in the distinctively red soccer jersey, either. They have been on each other’s minds, so much so the near miss strikes a psychic spark and the hairs on Apri
l’s arm rise. Responding to that telepathic itch, she turns to glance toward the building entrance, a fraction of a second after Rafi disappears inside.

  * * *

  HAYLEY DIDN’T CALL ahead, even though she is over an hour late arriving for work. She fails to greet the friendly US Park Police officer at the security gate, as is her custom, and doesn’t acknowledge the other staffers in the corridors of the West Wing, either. Her expression discourages interaction. Taking the hint, no one attempts to initiate a conversation with her. Approaching the door to Kyle Rodgers’s office, Hayley feels her phone vibrate. Checking it, she sees April is phoning for what must be the tenth time. The call goes unanswered, just like all the previous ones. Hayley doesn’t want to talk to her fellow deeper state operative about Cyber Jihad. Texts from Andrew Wilde have gone unanswered also. She’s done with all of it.

  Rodgers isn’t in the office when Hayley enters, wearing the same clothes she’d worn the day before. She knows she looks like hell but doesn’t care. Her boss is meeting with the congressional leaders and will be out of the office most of the day. As usual, a small mountain of paperwork is piled on her desk. Needing a break from the hard stuff, Hayley savors the idea of burying herself in this humdrum labor.

  But no sooner has she made peace with ignoring her covert responsibilities, Hayley begins to feel a nagging and irksome self-loathing. Plowing through the stupid office work of logging intern hours, assigning research projects to freelancers, and managing her boss’s travel schedule, she can almost feel her significance deflating. Turning her back on these most critical duties required of her by Publius, Hayley experiences an uncomfortable sensation of becoming like everybody else.