Savage Road

by Chris Hauty

Sophia stands in the open doorway of the handsome Georgian Revival brick house, backlit by the foyer’s glowing lights. She considers calling the police. It’s impossible to view what has just transpired as anything but unethical, if not illegal. The nanny disapproves of Clare Ryan only slightly less than she does Otto Sr. But does that make it okay for the man’s son to be stolen from him? Despite these qualms, Sophia resists the temptation to call 911. Clare Ryan is a powerful woman. What form of retaliation against the young woman might she take? Sophia’s mother isn’t in the country 1,000 percent legally. Does the nanny want to get her and her family mixed up in the dispute?

  With a long sigh, Sophia closes the door and turns to gather her belongings inside the home. God knows she doesn’t want to be here when Otto Sr. finally shows up.

  * * *

  SATURDAY, 11:40 P.M. Military snipers think they’re such hot shit. Sure, nailing some rug-hugging Islamic fanatic from two miles out is pretty fucking rad. One shot. He gets it. But how about knocking two jetliners filled with passengers out of the sky with a few keystrokes on a laptop from twenty miles away? Or two thousand miles? Hell, he could be sitting on a beach in Cancun and put two 737s on a collision course. That’s pretty sick, too, right? The CIA isn’t a stranger to aviation-centric, cyber covert action. The death of Poland’s president Lech Kaczyn´ski in the “accidental” crash of a Polish Air Force jet during a landing attempt at Smolensk North Airport in Russia is only one example. The talented folks at Savage Road are thoroughly acquainted with the vulnerabilities of air traffic control systems. Hackers at the NSA—and presumably other cyber warriors around the world—had long ago stolen the unencrypted passwords needed to gain access to the FAA’s networks. Blame it on that agency’s continued use of hardware long beyond manufacturer “end-of-life” recommendations. Without upgrades, FAA networks are extremely susceptible to hacking. Which is how Rafi Zamani penetrated the air traffic control system at the Dulles International Airport’s ATC tower. Knowing his way around the exceedingly complex interface happens to be one of Rafi’s specialties. Without the full awareness of his supervisors at the National Security Agency, he had amassed a sizable library of exploits for airports around the world.

  In the Columbia Heights safe house, Rafi sits on a ladder back chair—the single piece of furniture in the entire apartment—with his laptop perched on his knees. He’s hacked both the cabinet secretary’s email account and the Dulles air control system. All is ready. Rafi checks the status of the DHS secretary’s plane at its gate while simultaneously monitoring passenger jetliners as they approach the airport. Putting the cabinet secretary’s plane into an unavoidable collision course with another jetliner will be the karmic culmination of his work for the past two weeks.

  * * *

  CLARE RYAN SIGHS with relief as the plane prepares to push back from the gate. Sitting in first class with Otto Jr. beside her, the head of DHS believes the worst might be over. She estimates it will be hours, if not days before Hayley Chill can sound an alarm loud enough for the FBI to launch an actionable investigation. Getting out while the getting was good, Clare has to admit, was a wise choice. Her phone has been exploding with messages. She has received frantic messages from her husband, of course. But Jeffrey Williamson, her security guru, has also been trying to reach her. The texts from Otto were easy to ignore. Screw him and his latest pretty thing. He’d better brush up on his Spanish if he wants to see his son anytime soon. But the terse messages from the former corporate security contractor command Clare’s attention as the plane joins the lineup of aircraft taxiing past airport terminals.

  Whoever Jeffrey sent to take out Zamani did not come back. Clare’s suspicion the NSA contractor killed his assassin is all but confirmed. She imagines her security expert’s consternation when she hadn’t shown up for dinner. With her seemingly successful escape, Clare has decided to leave the whole mess for Jeffrey Williamson to handle. They had a brief romance years before when she was in Chicago. She never intended the affair to be anything more than a casual fling. But when Jeffrey dumped her for a young celebrity chef, Clare felt the sting of rejection. In such instances, it’s imperative to mask hurt feelings. Their professional relationship survived the breakup intact. But leaving Jeffrey Williamson in the lurch tonight is just a teeny, tiny bit easier because of that ancient rebuff. With a shrug, Clare Ryan powers off her phone and helps Otto Jr. shut down his Amazon Fire HD 10. They will be taking off soon, winging their way into a new life. It will be good, Clare decides. She will make it good.

  * * *

  AS HAYLEY EMERGES from the Iron Pony, she is already on the phone with the FBI. The agent who eventually takes her call seems disinclined to take the White House aide’s tip seriously. Infuriated, Hayley leaves both her phone number and the location of Zamani’s safe house. A call to DC Police draws similar skepticism. Hayley slips the phone back into a pocket. So be it. This will be on her. At her feet, she catches sight of a small fragment of jagged concrete on the sidewalk. Hayley bends down and palms the serrated shard. And starts running.

  She jogs at a hard, steady pace up Seventh Street. The cool, night air feels good on her face and arms. Thoughts drift to Rafi Zamani and his possible plans. Undoubtedly, dumping the CID report on her was a diversionary tactic. Was it a bid to buy time to make his escape? Hayley doesn’t think so. Now that Zamani has developed a taste for destruction, she doubts he will stop. Killing people is a logical progression of his mania. That realization quickens Hayley’s pace. On Georgia Avenue, she veers slightly west, straight into Columbia Heights. Feet seem to fly across the pavement, the dark city unfolding before her. Cyber Jihad’s burlesque grin has been haunting her for days. She is determined to punch it off his face.

  Hayley covers the two miles between the Iron Pony and Columbia Heights neighborhood in less than fourteen minutes. Turning left off Georgia Avenue, she runs west on Euclid Street. When she crosses Fourteenth Street, Zamani’s building comes into view. As the Iron Pony manager had vividly described, the Justice Park apartment building adjoins a brightly lit BP gas station. A check of the intercom directory reveals one missing entry: unit eleven. With luck, she will find Rafi Zamani in his apartment and detain him until the authorities finally arrive. She’s counting on the rogue NSA contractor having the incriminating laptop computer in his possession.

  Pausing on the sidewalk outside Zamani’s building, Hayley glances down at her clenched right fist. Opening it reveals the jagged concrete she picked up outside the Iron Pony. She drops the fragment and briefly studies the small, bloody cuts in her skin. These self-inflicted, ritualistic wounds are a process that has been a feature of her life since early childhood.

  There is nothing to fear. Blood has been drawn. Now she can fight.

  “Hayley Chill?” asks a male voice.

  She looks to her left and sees a man and a woman, blatantly FBI, exiting their parked car.

  The male agent produces credentials for Hayley to review. “Steve Woodward, FBI.”

  Hayley’s relief is visible. “Great. Zamani’s upstairs…”

  The female FBI agent places her grip lightly around Hayley’s forearm. “Mind coming with us, Ms. Chill?”

  Hayley’s face reflects her disbelief. “Go with you? Where?” More emphatically, she says, “Rafi Zamani is Cyber Jihad! He’s upstairs, in this building!”

  “We need to talk to you about your work at the White House, Ms. Chill. Why you exited the complex without authorization,” the male agent says. He seizes her by her other arm.

  * * *

  SUNDAY, 12:04 A.M. As the Airbus A320 jetliner begins to accelerate from a dead stop at the eastern terminus of Runway 19C, Clare Ryan experiences the satisfying effects of g-force thrusting her back into her leather-cushioned, first-class seat. Otto Jr. has fallen asleep beside her, looking small and sweetly vulnerable. With 158 passengers and nine crew members on board, the narrow-body, twin-engine jet airliner—designated UA1826—is scheduled to arrive in Mexico City at nine a.m., af
ter a short layover in Houston. The plane’s liftoff is the start of welcome deliverance from the mess of her life and ruined aspirations.

  In hindsight, Clare can now identify several errors of judgment on her part. With the investigatory powers available to her at DHS, she should have better vetted the psychological makeup of Rafi Zamani. More second-guessing nags at her. Should she have laid off attribution on the North Koreans rather than Russia? Doing so would have removed the rabid passions of NSA director Hernandez from the equation. But her gravest mistake was attempting to manipulate Hayley Chill. Who could have imagined the White House staffer would prove to be such a clever rival. Clare can only shrug. There’s no use in trying to figure out the identity of Hayley’s real boss. Those days are over. High time for the next generation to enter the arena.

  Clare decides to close her eyes and sleep. The last seventy-two hours have been an absolute beast. With luck, her slumber will be dream-free. To not think or problem-solve or worry for a few hours would be the ultimate luxury. With eyes shut, she reaches out with her right hand and places it on Otto Jr.’s arm, making that crucial physical connection. Admittedly, she has been a somewhat distracted parent up until this point. Clare is determined to change. Her son is what’s important now. Otto Jr. will learn to appreciate his mother’s care and attention more than the country ever did.

  While the cabinet secretary strives in vain for mindless sleep, eight miles away, American Airlines 5095 makes its approach to Dulles from a westerly direction. The Bombardier CRJ900’s manifest shows seventy-four passengers and five crew members onboard. ATC instructs the pilot to land on Runway 12. United Airlines 1826, meanwhile, has just lifted off from Runway 19C. Air traffic control has ordered its pilot to climb to ten thousand feet and execute a big, arching turn for a southwest heading.

  In the Dulles tower, windows on four sides of the control room offer an unobstructed view of all runways and air lane approaches. Highly trained personnel inside the room are responsible for aircraft approaching and taking off from the airport, as well as those taxiing on the ground. Their displays, computers, flight, and data plans are networked together. Every device is linked. All are vulnerable. Without the assistance and data provided by the ATC, every plane in the air would be flying blind. Timing is critical. Data integrity is most important of all. The assumption of aircraft crew and passengers alike is that the ATC network is secure. What’s on the screen represents what’s in reality. At least, that’s always been the belief.

  * * *

  STEVE WOODWARD LIES across the sidewalk, gripping his right leg. Hayley had kicked the FBI agent’s knee, violently compressing the shinbone inward and stretching the outer-side ligament. A total rupture of the exterior collateral ligament was the result. Woodward played college football. He knows exactly what sort of injury he has suffered. Players never walked off the field without assistance after a collateral ligament injury. Woodward considers giving chase after the White House aide—and he wonders how and where a White House staffer learned to fight so efficiently—but his partner, Linda Steele, needs his immediate attention. The female FBI agent is flat on her back. After the White House aide staved in Woodward’s knee, she elbowed Steele in the left temple.

  Give me a motherfuckin’ break. Woodward watches their suspect gently ease his unconscious partner down to the ground lest she fractures her skull on the sidewalk. He reaches for his gun and fails to find it in his holster. Damn! Who the hell is Hayley Chill? After the White House aide flees—into the apartment building, he thinks—Woodward pulls himself across the sidewalk to Linda Steele’s side. He checks her pulse. While no doctor, the injured FBI agent is fairly certain his partner has been merely knocked unconscious.

  * * *

  “RAFI ZAMANI,” SAYS Hayley, having kicked in the door.

  She stands framed in the shattered entryway. The NSA contractor is across the 480-square-foot room, sitting on the wooden ladder back chair next to one of two windows. His fingers hover over the keyboard. Yazat, naturally, is going thermonuclear.

  “I’d advise you not to take another step,” he says.

  Hayley gestures at the yappy French bulldog. “Because of that?”

  “Cunt.”

  Rafi says the word like a toxin spit from his mouth, vile and cringing and full of crippled self-esteem. His fingers begin dancing again across the laptop’s keys. Hayley propels herself forward, having discarded the FBI agent’s service weapon in the hallway. Properly launched, she impacts roughly shoulder-high with Zamani. The laptop skitters out of his grip and smashes into the wall as Rafi and Hayley collide. They fight. He scraps like a cornered animal, lacking economy of energy and focused strength. Taken by surprise and only studio-trained, the NSA contractor forgets the lessons he learned in his Krav Maga classes. In contrast to Rafi’s frenzied resistance, Hayley’s physical movements are measured. Having tuned up with the two FBI agents downstairs, she peppers her adversary with a series of concentrated jabs to the left eye socket. Without knowing it, she’s fortunate Rafi was armed with a laptop and not his fighting knife. The dog is more of a nuisance. So Hayley kicks him, too, though reluctantly.

  Knocked to the ground and thoroughly beaten, Rafi lies on his back, arms and legs extended like da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man. Blood flows copiously from a broken nose and cuts above his left eye. He offers no further resistance. Hayley sits back on her heels, barely winded. She gestures toward the busted laptop.

  “What have you done?”

  Rafi smiles his Joker’s smile. “Well, let’s put it this way… I wasn’t on Facebook.”

  Hayley deflates just a little bit. She was too late. “Why?”

  “The truth is an act of love.” Failing to get a rise out of her, he asks, “Say hello to Charlie Hicks for me?”

  Hayley’s face is a mask behind a mask. She’ll be damned if this emotional cripple will get her goat.

  Footsteps thunder up the stairwell, an oncoming storm. The cavalry has arrived.

  Hayley says to him, “It’s over.”

  “I sincerely doubt that.”

  The FBI agents make a tactical entrance into the room, storming in with a bouquet of guns. Their target is a female who matches Hayley’s physical description. As they swarm to subdue her, Rafi Zamani rises to his feet. Unmolested by the authorities, he pushes open the window to the fire escape outside.

  “Stop him! That’s Cyber Jihad!”

  The FBI agents, having observed what Hayley had done to their injured colleagues downstairs on the sidewalk, ignore her strenuous protestations. Rafi escapes clean away.

  * * *

  THE BLIP THAT flashes across the monitor lasts less than a few seconds. One of the controllers, responsible for ground traffic, gasps. His display for ASDE-3 Surface Movement Radar zeroes out.

  “Hey! I’m down!”

  The sallow and prematurely gray man begins flipping switches and slamming keys on his console, to no avail. A supervisor comes over to look over his shoulder. He sees the dark screen and whips around to check his controllers working air traffic.

  Their screens appear to be unaffected.

  “Everybody else okay?” he asks the room, nevertheless, with breath bated.

  Thumbs-up and “A-OK”s are the response. Relieved, the ATC supervisor turns his attention back on the SMR display to start troubleshooting the problem there. The shift supervisor tries to coax the network controlling ground traffic on the airport’s tarmacs back to life. Sweat begins to bead on his brow. He’s never seen a complete system knockdown like this one in twenty-two years on the job.

  In the dark skies fifteen thousand feet above them, United Airlines 1826 follows its flight pattern as designated by the Dulles tower. In doing so, the plane arcs a mile wide of American Airlines 5095 making its approach to the airport from the west.

  In the weeks and months that follow, forensic computer engineers will determine that Rafi Zamani’s efforts to penetrate the ATC network were only partially successful. By every analysis,
investigators concluded the NSA contractor was interrupted at a critical juncture. Forced to detonate his logic bomb before he had a chance to place it where he intended, the hacker had paralyzed only ground control operations at Dulles. As a result, the worst damage suffered in the incident was a fender bender between an Alaska Airbus 319-100 and a Boeing 737 flying for Sun Country Airlines at the hold block east of Runway 1C.

  Strapped in her seat on the United flight bound for Mexico, Clare Ryan has finally found sweet, delicious sleep. She dreams of the ocean. Sand and sun. She dreams of a man. He has no face. His arms are strong. On her face and arms, she feels a cool breeze. She hears the sounds of children playing. She is safe.

  * * *

  SUNDAY, 12:27 A.M. He wears no helmet or armored jacket. He abandoned all of his regular riding gear in his escape from the apartment building. On this ride, it’s only him and his naked motorbike. Wind buffets his chest as Rafi maintains blistering speed through traffic and stoplights. Acceleration for acceleration’s sake. The pure, kinetic power in his control is intoxicating. This. This is it!

  That vicious, little bitch may have ruined the last brushstrokes of his masterpiece. No way to know for sure. Not until he can check the news on Twitter. But what difference does it make? Contrary to what that Title IX hillbilly said, it’s not over. Not even close. Rafi is taking a short sabbatical, that’s all. A change of venue is necessary, of course. But he will rise again. To paraphrase Archimedes, give me an exploit big enough and network in which to place it, and I shall destroy the world. Shut it down. Kill them all. His ultimate goal is to stomp out mankind, if possible, and all of its spawn. Every last, stinking one of them. So, it’s goodbye for now. Goodbye, corrupt Washington. Goodbye to Yazat, too. Time to go.