by Chris Hauty
While Barrios ponders the implications of the proverb, Konstantin Tabakov stands with a weary sigh. “There is another saying, more popular here in the West.” He pauses to retrieve the bag of sunflower seeds from his jacket pocket. In English, he says, “All good things must come to an end.”
Popping the sunflower seed into his mouth, the gruff GRU officer turns his back on the other two men and heads back up the cathedral aisle, toward the exit.
* * *
HAYLEY CHILL HAS no way of knowing Alberto Barrios isn’t in the White House residence but rather a little over three miles away, at the Washington National Cathedral. The way forward remains murky. With electricity restored everywhere but a few rural counties in Pennsylvania and Maryland, the siege mentality that had gripped the West Wing has abated. Air-conditioning has brought the temperature inside the building to a comfortable level again. Hayley nurtures the hope that the worst is in the past. Kyle Rodgers dashes that brief optimism when he returns from the residence empty-handed forty minutes later.
“Not good,” he says to Hayley when she asks after Monroe.
“The Security Council just convened, sir.”
“I’ll tell them he has the flu.”
“They won’t believe you.”
Her boss can’t mask his annoyance. “You’re treating me like a slow ten-year-old because why exactly?”
“I’m sorry, sir.” Hayley pauses, thinking frantically of a way to get into the residence. “Does the president need anything? What can I do to help?”
Rodgers is gathering his papers to go downstairs to the Situation Room. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe you can tell the folks down in the Situation Room that the president has the flu.”
Hayley stares at her boss, stone-faced. He hates it when she does that.
“Forget it. Go home. Or, better yet, figure out who the hell Cyber Jihad is and punch that sonuvabitch in the face.” Rodgers immediately regrets the mild obscenity. “I’m sorry, Hayley.”
“That’s all right, sir. I’ve heard much worse.”
“Yes, I imagine you have,” Rodgers says. “We’ll get through this.”
Behind her boss’s back, Hayley smiles grimly to herself. If he only knew the half of it.
“Thank you, sir. I’m sure we will.”
Rodgers has his briefcase packed and walks out the door, heading to the meeting of the Security Council.
Once he’s gone, Hayley retrieves her KryptAll phone. She had missed a call from Andrew Wilde five minutes earlier. She dials his number.
Wilde’s stuck in a jam on Interstate 95, the traffic situation having not wholly recovered from the blackout.
“I wanted you to know there’s a situation regarding our mutual friend from Oregon.”
Hayley reacts, the muscles in her face constricting. She knows Wilde won’t go into specifics over the telephone, KryptAll or not.
Taking a stab in the dark, she says, “Can I visit her in the hospital?”
“Tomorrow. Or the day after. Stay focused. You have two jobs now. Understand? Your country needs you.”
Wilde disconnects the call. Hayley sits in her chair, motionless. She understands why she hasn’t heard from April since their meeting at Meridian Hill Park. That her friend is injured or incapacitated in some way is clear. She contemplates calling area hospitals for more information but decides against it. Wilde had been explicit in his directive. In addition to her duties running Monroe as a double agent, Hayley has inherited April’s operation to chase down Cyber Jihad as well. Now more than ever, she must gain James Odom’s cooperation. Alberto Barrios is the key.
At this very minute, the Security Council is meeting in the basement of the White House to determine the next move by the US. Regardless of Rafi Zamani’s motivations for launching Cyber Jihad on America, the nation is now engaged in an evolving cyber war with Russia. April Wu’s accusations against Rafi Zamani won’t be thoroughly investigated in time to prevent further retaliation against Moscow. The two superpowers haven’t been closer to all-out war since the thirteen-day confrontation in October 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
* * *
ALMOST TWO HOURS later, Kyle Rodgers walks back into the office. “You’re still here?” he asks on seeing Hayley at her desk.
“Just finishing up. How’d it go, sir? Are we at war?”
“In a weird way, it was good the president wasn’t downstairs. Without POTUS, the more lunatic fringe on the Council couldn’t hold sway over him. The vice president tried to hold sway, but he was easily rebuffed.”
Hayley nods. More time is a good thing.
Rodgers checks his watch and quickly gathers up his personal items from his desk. “I’ve got late drinks.”
Hayley checks her watch. It’s almost eleven p.m.
Rodgers hurries for the door. “Go home!” he says over his shoulder.
After her boss has left, she considers her options. With April’s apparent incapacitation, by whatever cause, stopping Rafi Zamani has become Hayley’s responsibility. How fitting, then, that the one person who can help is her asset, President Richard Monroe. As a double agent for the deeper state, he has performed well, providing a voluminous amount of faked documents and intelligence to his GRU handler that undoubtedly has the Russians chasing their tails. A falsely annotated briefing paper on the Air Force’s latest stealth bomber technology, fabricated diplomatic cables from a NATO ally… Hayley and her cohorts at Publius have flooded the Kremlin, through their mole in the Oval Office, with a bewildering trove of misinformation. If only the CIA or NSA were so successful in their counterespionage activities.
But now Hayley needs Monroe for equally important reasons, if not more so. The new challenge is a more prosaic one, for sure. She simply needs the president to put her in front of his valet, Alberto Barrios. Despite the president’s apparent emotional collapse, and his hostility toward her, Hayley is convinced she can compel him to help.
Picking up the phone on her desk, Hayley dials the number for the office of the Secret Service detail on-site.
* * *
FRIDAY, 11:03 P.M. Hayley climbs the elegant staircase to the second floor of the White House’s main building and is met by an usher who wordlessly leads her toward the president’s bedroom at the western end of the central hall. Secret Service agents stand at the top of the stairs, in the central hall, and at the doorway leading into the west sitting hall. The pretext for her seeing the president was easily established, given his absence from the Oval Office for the last twenty-four hours. With most of the West Wing staff having departed for the day, Hayley must deliver briefing materials for Monroe to “review.” The senior agent on detail obtained the president’s approval. Despite his antagonism toward her, Hayley guesses Monroe is feeling terribly isolated. She knows the whole story. By that right, she is better company than most. He can speak freely with her.
Hayley doesn’t expect to run into Alberto Barrios by simply passing him here in the central hall of the White House residence. Confirming that belief, she observes no indication of the Cuban being on premises. A valet shows Hayley into the president’s private sitting room, just off his bedroom. Monroe, wearing pajamas and a silk robe, sits in an easy chair by the fireplace. A small fire crackles in the hearth, despite the warm spring weather outside. He seems mesmerized by the comforting flames, not looking toward Hayley as she enters the room. The usher retreats into the corridor but leaves the door open.
Hayley, clutching a briefing book to her chest, stops short of the circle of couches and comfortable chairs oriented to the fireplace.
“Mr. President?”
He finally looks toward her, his eyes expressing a bottomless sorrow. Richard Monroe is a defeated man. Iconic facial features that were at least partially responsible for his election to the presidency are collapsed and gray.
When the president gestures in a vague direction of the couch, Hayley clocks the tremor in his hand. “Sit, please.”
Hayley takes a seat. She rac
ks her brain for the words that will bring solace to a ruined man collapsing under the weight of dueling superpower masters. If the bromide of being caught between a rock and a hard place was ever more apt, Hayley can’t imagine one. And the deeper state wants Richard Monroe to run for reelection and potentially serve an additional four years? Looking at him, Hayley can’t fathom it. She only hopes the president can survive the night.
“Difficult times, sir. For the entire country.”
“They want me to attack Russia again. Take out their telephones and Internet. Can you imagine? Malkin and his gang will kill me, just like their predecessors killed Kennedy.”
“It’s true. You’re in a terrible fix, sir.”
“I never wanted this,” he says, gesturing vaguely to the ornate, august room they occupy. “I could have retired from the army, lived a quiet life until the day I died. It was that damn book.” Monroe is referring to the best-selling memoir that catapulted him to the White House. The best-selling memoir had truly started it all.
“Have you been contacted recently by your GRU handler, sir?”
“The usual dead drop messages.” Monroe gestures toward the Sangamon edition of Sandburg’s biography of Lincoln.
Hayley keeps her gaze locked on the president. “What about your valet, Alberto Barrios?” she asks. The question is like a tossed grenade, with no cover from its blast radius.
Richard Monroe has seen and done many things in his life as a warrior, horrific spectacles not witnessed by the average man. He has spent a life in the military and excelled there. In command of an M1 Abrams tank at the Battle of Medina Ridge, outside Basra, during Operation Desert Storm or leading the Third Infantry Division in its seizing Baghdad in the Iraq War, he has inflicted great violence on cities and their citizens. He has been trained all his life not to flinch in the face of adversity. Sitting across from twenty-seven-year-old Hayley Chill, he manages not to recoil despite his fragile emotional state.
“What about my valet? I have six of them.”
Hayley watches the president carefully, intrigued by his bold defiance.
“Barrios, sir. He’s the man I’m interested in.”
“Alberto? I didn’t know his last name. Cuban fellow. Works the day shift. What of him?”
Hayley wants to hit Monroe square in the eye with it. “He’s an agent for the GRU. You know that, don’t you?”
“I did not. Moscow deliberately withheld the identity of their operative inside the White House. That’s how dead drops work.”
Hayley refuses to be sidelined. “Is he on staff tonight, sir? I’d like to speak to him.”
“Haven’t a clue. There’s been a few things on my mind other than the whereabouts of one of my valets.”
“I require the absolute truth from you, sir. Failure to tell me everything may result in your imprisonment in a federal penitentiary for the rest of your life.” Hayley lets a moment pass so that what she has threatened can sink in. “Is Alberto Barrios an agent for the GRU?”
Monroe’s distress increases with Hayley’s persistence, pushing the limits of his ability to control it. “I told you. I have zero ideas if he is or isn’t.” With sagging shoulders and etched-in-stone frown, he looks again into the fire. His life is finished.
Hayley stands. The president doesn’t move a muscle, as if he’s forgotten she’s even there.
“Sir?”
He turns his gaze toward her, reluctantly.
“Yes? What is it?”
“Instruct Alberto Barrios to meet me downstairs, tomorrow morning at nine. In the Palm Room. Tell him I’m bringing a message from the First Lady. Tell him anything to get him there. Do you understand? Downstairs at nine.”
“Yes. I understand.” His voice sounds remote. Robotic.
* * *
A FEW MINUTES past eleven p.m., Rafi Zamani waits under a marble arch of the World War II Memorial. The Mall beyond is deserted. After a tumultuous day in the nation’s capital, no one ventures outside for a midnight stroll along the Reflecting Pool simmering in the moonlight. The oval-shaped fountain at the center of the memorial splashes agreeably, encircled by fifty-six pillars standing sentry over the scene. A little bit like Las Vegas, Rafi surmises. War memorial? The United States is a country only pretending to be respectful of sacrifice.
But where is the Boss? Rafi experiences creeping anxiety he’s been set up. He has several contingencies in place in the event of a trap. If Rafi isn’t around to stop the transmission scheduled in ninety minutes, he’ll send a data dump implicating his boss to the New York Times, the Guardian, WikiLeaks, the Washington Post, and, for good measure, the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The superficial normalcy that has returned to the city—only a handful of hours removed from the chaos of the blackout that he had caused—depresses Rafi slightly. It occurs to him that he is becoming addicted to inflicting damage on a world he despises. With each consecutive cyberattack, Rafi feels a need for a bigger and more traumatic impact to achieve the same gratifying thrill. His psychiatrist, if he still saw one, would no doubt have a field day with this shit.
He sees a figure approach. Fucking bitch, it’s about time.
Clare Ryan walks across the marble-lined plaza and joins Rafi under the arch. A low mist swirls at their feet like a pale feral cat. In the Baltics, the Russian army mobilizes along its border, threatening the Baltic States. The president hasn’t moved from his chair in the sitting room on the second floor of the White House. A ventricular catheter inserted through a twist-drill craniostomy at April Wu’s bedside monitors her brain for swelling due to her traumatic injury. These disparate incidents stem from two unlikely associates—a cabinet secretary and a misogynistic NSA contractor—meeting clandestinely at Washington’s newest memorial.
“Have you gone mad?” Clare asks. Laying eyes on the young man instantly triggers her fury.
Jeffrey Williamson, an executive protection agent assigned to the Homeland Security secretary during her former life as a Boeing executive, had brokered Zamani’s hiring. Formerly with Hillard Heintze, a Chicago-based security consultancy that counts several Fortune 500 companies among its clients, Williamson left that firm after Clare departed from Boeing. He’s been employed by her, on a contract basis, ever since. With more than a dozen years in the US Secret Service and combat experience in Afghanistan as a Marine Corps officer, Williamson exudes dispassionate competence. His loyalty to his only client is absolute. But with so much at stake, Clare insisted on a personal involvement with the operation. That arrogance has cost her dearly. Her biggest mistake was assuming she could manipulate Rafi Zamani.
The NSA contractor giggles. “Some might be of the opinion that I’m not well,” he says in answer to her rhetorical question.
“I told you to stop days ago!”
He shrugs. “Events transpired.”
“People died today. Dozens more injured!”
And now a smirk.
More than any sympathy she may or may not feel for the innocent victims of Rafi’s cyberattacks, Clare is most concerned with her welfare. The NSA contractor’s antics have put her in tremendous jeopardy. But what’s done is done. Survival instincts kick in. Endurance is her heroin. Reasoning with the young man, however, is futile.
“You’re done. It’s over.” There is a threatening subtext to her statement.
“As long as I’m paid for my labors, I think I could be finished here.”
“And then you’re gone. Forever. I don’t care where.”
“They won’t find me,” Rafi says with complete confidence. “A new me in a new place.”
“Good.”
“It’s not like the old me or the old place was all that hot,” he says, giggling awkwardly again.
Clare retrieves her phone from her bag and checks it for messages, overtly repulsed by the young man. “Whatever.”
“My money?”
“You’ll have it tomorrow.”
The Homeland Security secretary turns and starts walking away.
> Rafi mutters to himself, “Cunt.”
She spins on the balls of her feet. “Excuse me?” Clare had heard the vile obscenity.
More than a little scared of her—all females, for that matter—Rafi smiles nervously. “Did you get everything you desired, Madam Secretary?”
Was it worth all of this? Was an expanded and more powerful Department of Homeland Security worth her association with this… creature? These questions bang around in her head as she stares at the young man in a motorcycle jacket. “You’ll get your goddamn money tomorrow.”
Clare Ryan turns again and strides off. Like a spurned lover, Rafi imagines.
* * *
THIRTY-SEVEN-YEAR-OLD BOEING EXECUTIVE Clare Ryan was kidnapped from the underground parking garage of her condo in downtown Chicago. Bound, gagged, and crammed into the 32 x 18 x 16 inch “footlocker,” she was driven hours north in the cargo hold of a battered white panel van to an isolated farmhouse. Clare spent the first ten days locked in the trunk. In those earliest days of her kidnapping, the gang let her out for only two bathroom breaks a day. The Boeing executive correctly guessed the farmhouse’s location on the Upper Peninsula. Something about the light up there. Mercifully, her kidnappers had chosen early June to initiate their plot. Temperatures in the winter often remained below zero for days on end. The farmhouse seemed ill-equipped for the cold.
Only after Clare was allowed more time out of the trunk did she gain more than a superficial awareness of her kidnappers and their characteristics. Though she had counted seven individuals in the gang—three women and four men, all in their twenties or early thirties—only four members of the kidnapping crew spent a considerable amount of time at the Upper Peninsula farmhouse. The two male and female Yoopers, as these caretaker kidnappers called themselves—a takeoff on the area nickname derived from “U.P.-ers”—were hard-core members of the War Resistance League. In the judgment of the WRL, Clare Ryan’s work for the Boeing Corporation made her nothing less than a war criminal. Accordingly, she was released from the trunk on the tenth day for her “trial.” In the mostly bare living room of the ramshackle farmhouse, musty with the smell of mouse droppings and aspergillus mold, Clare Ryan was convicted of multiple crimes against humanity—specifically, the murder of civilians in Yemen—and sentenced to death.