by Chris Hauty
Hayley stares at him, not quite understanding his point. Asher makes a face and gestures for her to follow. “Let’s go. The fate of the free world hangs in the balance, and we’ve got phones to program.”
3
GAMMA-HYDROXYBUTYRIC ACID
She wakes up well before dawn lying in bed next to Scott. He has been awake for almost thirty minutes now, simply watching her.
“What?” she asks him.
“Trying to come up with a label for this. You and me.”
“Cardio?” Hayley suggests. He reacts with a hurt expression, and she regrets her glibness. But it’s only been a week. What’s the rush to give it a name? Scott opens his mouth to make his case, but she stops him with a gesture.
“Don’t. Your words for it might be different than mine, and then where will we be?”
“Okay,” he concedes, but it’s obvious he won’t let it go. Hayley has seen this look before, with her other lovers. The clock starts ticking down, only a matter of time now before she’ll end it with him. This need men have to own a thing rather than simply experience it. They convince themselves it’s love they’re feeling, but Hayley knows better. What they actually have is property lust, craving something around which they can build a wall. Following the death of her father, Hayley had had a front-row seat to her mother’s exploitation and abuse by a series of ever-worsening boyfriends, witness to a lifetime’s accumulation of lies, harangue, and deception. Even before she was twelve years old, Hayley had promised herself never to cede control of her life to any man. How refreshing would it be to reveal these thoughts to Scott without his defensiveness or recrimination? Hayley has yet to meet the man capable of handling who she really is and the limitation of her needs. Without further conversation, Scott gets out of bed and leaves the room to make coffee.
Scott’s kitchen is brightly lit, the windows like black mirrors in the predawn hours. Hayley sits at the Ikea dining table as Scott serves the breakfast he has prepared for them and takes the opposite chair. Hayley seems taciturn, even for her.
“You okay?” he asks her.
“I’m fine. Why?” Hayley could’ve scripted this scene before it unfolded, a replay of prior encounters.
“You seem a little preoccupied,” Scott tells Hayley.
She regrets their brief but significant exchange in bed. Up to that moment Hayley had sufficiently enjoyed Scott’s company and the physical release of sex. Though they have little in common besides a physical compatibility and mutual respect, she had hoped they might maintain a relationship parked somewhere between committed and casual. It would have been nice to rest at this place with Scott awhile and pursue a less solitary life. What would it be like to have just that level of companionship? But after their awkward talk only minutes before, all of that seems impossible. She feels Scott’s gaze on her. He expects a response.
“My boss died. I found his body. It was unsettling.”
“Of course. Right.” Scott starts eating. Hayley watches him for a brief moment.
“So are you married or anything?” she asks, already knowing the answer. Hayley had clocked the indisputable evidence in the two visits to Scott’s home. A lamp no man would purchase and therefore inherited in the separation. Same with the food processor gathering dust on the counter. The entire place smacked of hodgepodge, the grim and depressing vibe of man-child recently and involuntarily set adrift. Someone as observant as Hayley would not miss the artifacts of a failed marriage.
Scott’s fork freezes in midair, just below his chin. “Is it that obvious?”
“Yes, it’s that obvious.”
“Separated two years,” he concedes.
“Why not divorced?” Hayley presses.
“Losing a three-year-old to leukemia wasn’t punishment enough?”
Hayley bites her lower lip. One of her younger siblings had had asthma that nearly killed her. Inhaled nedocromil managed the problem. Poor Harper deals with the effects of that awful disease to this day.
“I’m sorry,” Hayley tells Scott.
“I know.”
Scott grabs his tablet. The device sports a Rolling Stones “tongue and lips” decal. So Scott. Such a bro. He inputs the device password and accesses a photo of an adorable toddler. Offers the tablet to Hayley for closer inspection. “Max,” he tells her.
“Beautiful,” Hayley acknowledges.
Scott says nothing. Outside the window, the sky has gone from ink black to the most cobalt of blues. Another day is just beginning. What wasn’t said continues to weigh between them.
Later, driving into the city with Scott, Hayley performs familiar calculations in her head. Barely a fling, their affair has run its course. When is the best time to break it off with him? Now? They have plans for dinner after work this evening. Would it be more humane to do it then? The interior of the black BMW 335i is over-the-top messy, like the bedrooms of the least reputable frat on campus. There are scuff marks on the dash, and garbage is thick on the floor. The clutter is almost childish, suggestive of Scott’s vulnerability. Hayley’s conviction fails her. Dinner. She’ll have the talk with him then.
The silence that developed between them in the house persists in the car. Hayley strives to alleviate that unease with mild banter. She indicates the confusion of empty coffee cups and fast-food packaging at her feet. “My brother hunts out of his car and manages to keep it cleaner than this.”
“What about the city bus? Clean or less clean?” Scott asks her, grinning widely.
He has no idea it’s over between them. He thinks this is only the beginning. Recognizing these facts makes Hayley increasingly uncomfortable, and she suffers the self-recrimination that accompanies any failure of willpower. Why had she let herself be pulled into this mess? It occurs to her she might have some personality disorder, a terror of real intimacy, but just as quickly banishes the thought. There’s no time now for therapeutic response, if in fact she has a problem. Looking out her passenger-side window, she sees a crowd of protestors in Lafayette Square. The group is much larger than she has seen there before and more demonstrative. DC Metro and US Park Police confront the protestors, who carry signs decrying Russia’s interference in Estonia.
Leaving the car parked in the White House lot and walking toward the West Wing ground-floor entrance, Scott discreetly takes Hayley’s hand and gives it a squeeze before releasing it. “Eight o’clock?” he asks her. Hayley nods. They diverge then and continue in opposite directions.
When Hayley arrives at White House Operations, she joins Asher and Karen Rey watching CNN on one of the office computers. Senator Taylor Cox is being interviewed in the marble corridor outside his senate office. Cox, the minority leader and ranking member of the Committee on Foreign Relations, appears genuinely agitated and not merely grandstanding.
“There’s a difference between disruption and destruction. What the president proposes in creation of a new European alliance, a kind of NATO-lite, is nothing short of a gold-plated invitation to Russia to do as it pleases, whether meddling in democratic elections around the world or military invasion of its neighbors, like Estonia,” the senator tells the CNN reporter.
“The president feels the greater threat is China, Senator,” the reporter needlessly reminds Cox. “Can you really so easily dismiss the military assessment of a man who spent nearly his entire adult life in the army?”
The senator swallows an obscenity. How can they be so blinded by the man’s wartime exploits? He composes himself and responds with controlled anger. “No one is dismissive of the president’s military service. But let’s not confuse the manifestation of power, which is the essence of military might, and policies and long-held political ideals of the United States of America. We must uphold a long-standing commitment to protect our allies, no matter on what hemisphere. Let me speak frankly. President Monroe is taking this nation down a perilous path. To be honest, I’m worried for our country and for the world.”
“Thank you for your time, Senator,” the reporter
tells him as Cox turns and walks away. The reporter faces the camera. “Strong words from the Senate minority leader this morning.”
Rey reaches for the computer’s keyboard and mutes the volume. “Okay. Let’s get back to work.”
Asher glances to Hayley standing next to him. “Ever get the feeling you’re a henchman rather than a sidekick?” Hayley keeps her opinion to herself. Asher feels the senior aide’s hard gaze on him. He throws up his hands in mock appeal. “Just kidding!”
Karen Rey is in no joking mood. Work in any West Wing is an incredibly exhausting endeavor, but a job in the Monroe administration multiplies that stress by a factor of ten. She hasn’t taken a vacation in God knows how long. Hired to work on the Monroe campaign early in its formation, Rey has ridden the wave from unexpected election victory to today, eleven months into a confrontational presidency. Because Monroe’s political philosophy and agenda is essentially Peter Hall’s political philosophy and agenda, Rey can be categorized as a true believer. She isn’t in this for post–West Wing riches. Rey believes POTUS really can make America America again.
When Rey turns away from the computer screen, she sees a middle-aged black woman in her forties blocking her path out the door. “Who the hell are you?” the White House aide demands of a deadpan Helen Udall.
* * *
FBI AGENT UDALL and Hayley have Peter Hall’s office on the first floor to themselves. The new chief doesn’t arrive for another day. As a courtesy to the bureau, Kyle Rodgers has given his okay for Udall to conduct interviews there. The FBI agent sits at a small worktable in one corner of the office, next to a large window overlooking the North Lawn. Hayley sits across from Udall, hands folded calmly on the tabletop.
“Polymorphic ventricular tachycardia. Fibrillation, followed by cardiac death. Open-and-shut, right?” Udall asks Hayley.
“I wouldn’t know, ma’am.”
“It’s the sort of thing that happens to otherwise healthy men and women countless times a day.” Udall snaps her fingers. “Just like that.”
Hayley is expressionless, giving the FBI investigator nothing. Udall continues, doling out information like chum. “What’s different here, atypical it would seem, is the fact that a very minute trace of GHB was discovered in Mr. Hall’s blood. Gamma-hydroxybutyric acid.” Hayley still says nothing but is interested in every word the FBI agent has to say.
“GHB is the ‘date rape’ drug. What’s a date rape drug doing inside the president’s chief of staff?”
“I don’t know, ma’am,” Hayley replies. “What does any of this have to do with me?”
“You were the first person on the scene.”
“I didn’t enter the residence until after the police and EMTs had arrived, ma’am,” Hayley reminds Udall. “I saw Mr. Hall’s body from outside the house, through a window, and from an adjoining room.”
Every investigative muscle Udall has developed over twenty years in the business tells her the White House intern is withholding information. Exactly why Hayley isn’t more forthcoming is anyone’s guess, but Udall is more determined than before to crack the West Virginian’s walnut-hard shell. “If you saw anything unusual, Hayley, the FBI wants to know about it.”
Hayley shakes her head, seemingly helpless to give her interrogator what she wants. “Sorry, ma’am. Sure wish I could be more help.”
For the next several seconds, the FBI agent stares at Hayley with a blank expression, communicating silently her suspicion the intern isn’t telling the truth. Hayley doesn’t waver or rattle, coolly meeting Udall’s gaze.
“Ma’am?” she asks Udall after this long silence, giving the FBI agent all the room she needs to pursue the interview.
A thoroughly stymied Udall offers Hayley her card. “Call me. With anything.”
Hayley doesn’t accept the agent’s card. “You gave me one of your cards yesterday, ma’am. Remember? I still have it.”
Udall unsmilingly continues to offer the card. “Take another. Got tons of ’em. The FBI has a deal with somebody.”
After Udall leaves, Hayley returns to the White House Operations office. Karen Rey had been assigned the task of doing the spadework vetting the new chief of staff before his selection is made public tomorrow. She then delegated that tedious chore to Asher. He and Hayley spend the next ten hours performing much of the necessary background research. Did the candidate actually receive the advanced degree he said he did on his résumé? Did he pay taxes for his nanny? What is the real status of his marriage, not just the legal one? Countless phone calls and follow-up emails are made. By eight p.m., they’ve worked through most of the vetting checklist. Asher leaves, citing utter exhaustion, and drags a promise from Hayley to leave by nine p.m. They can finish the job by noon tomorrow, as demanded by Rey.
Once Asher has left and Hayley has the office to herself, she pushes the CoS candidate file to one side of her desk and opens her Internet browser for more quixotic searching of a match of the boot print in the snow at Kalorama Road. Manufacturer sites and wholesale sellers display their offerings in great photographic detail. Hayley methodically peruses each site, comparing boot soles to the photo of the print. So far she has found nothing that suggests an exact match.
Hayley is so engrossed in her work she doesn’t hear Scott enter the office and walk up to just behind her.
“Ready?”
Hayley reacts with a start. “I didn’t hear you come in,” she tells him, somewhat embarrassed.
Scott indicates the computer screen and display of boots.
“What’s this all about?”
Hayley picks up her phone and dumps her keys in her backpack, slinging it over her shoulder. She pointedly ignores Scott’s innocent question. “Let’s go,” she announces as she heads for the door, for the first time since this morning remembering the unpleasant task that lies ahead. Like anyone in her situation, Hayley wonders how Scott will react to being dumped.
A car breakdown at the Virginia Avenue on-ramp to Interstate 66 has jammed traffic there. Scott steers the BMW sedan west on Pennsylvania, transitioning to M Street in order to cross the Potomac on Key Bridge. Rain has been falling since lunchtime and the roads are slick, reflecting city lights. Scott had suggested a Thai place near his home in Falls Church. The food quality is only average, but they’re guaranteed not to run into anyone from work.
During much of the ride, Hayley remains preoccupied and mostly quiet. In her head, she runs the lines she will deliver to Scott. This breakup shouldn’t be too big a drama given how long they’ve been seeing each other. Hayley ponders the expression “seeing one another,” such a useless and overtly benign euphemism. Whoever can truly see another person? People wear so many masks they can’t even see themselves, let alone their significant other. She and Scott have been fucking each other for less than a week. Easier to think of their relationship in those more accurate terms, given what she is about to say.
“Sure you’re okay?” he asks her.
Hayley shrugs and plays a card she’s dealt before.
“The FBI interviewed me again today.”
“I heard they were on the premises. Questioning you?” he asks with some surprise.
“Peter Hall,” she tells him, nodding. “Wanted to know if I’d noticed anything odd or out of place.”
“Did you?”
“No. But Udall thinks his death might be foul play. They found traces of anesthesia in Hall’s system.”
“Okay. So the FBI can worry about it.”
Hayley says nothing. She finds herself staring at the BMW’s black faux-leather dash in front of her. Among the scuff marks there, she sees a dusty imprint of the boot, an exact match of the print she found in the snow outside Hall’s residence, down to the distinctive linear x’s and dashes above an array of squares.
Scott sees Hayley gaping at the boot print on the dash. In that instant, he links this fixation to her inexplicable Internet search for boots just a half hour earlier. At the time he had thought nothing of it. Now she�
��s similarly transfixed by the presence of a boot print on his dash. “What?” he asks.
“Nothing,” she responds. “The whole business, it’s just upsetting.”
“Must be,” Scott responds, but his voice has gone strangely hollow and vacant. He focuses on the road ahead as the vehicle begins to cross the Key Bridge.
Hayley feels time elongate, stretching like taffy between the present and an unreliable future. Each heartbeat thuds with anticipation and dread. The game is up. No longer a question of breaking off a brief love affair, this is a stark matter of survival. She is in the jaws of the lion.
Without announcement, Hayley unlatches her seat belt and reaches for the door handle. She has managed to push the door halfway open when Scott reaches across her and pulls it closed again. Then, with the same hand, he withdraws a combat knife from an ankle sheath and thrusts, with the intent of driving it deep into his passenger’s chest. Hayley raises her backpack, which she had in her lap, and blocks his attack. The knife’s blade pierces the pack’s fabric and becomes hung up when Scott tries to withdraw it for a second attempt. Armed only with her fists, Hayley smashes her balled-up right hand into Scott’s face, bringing a constellation of stars to his vision.
The BMW sedan veers right and crashes through the masonry balustrade on the north side of the bridge. Flying off the span as if choreographed by stunt artists, the vehicle arcs elegantly through the air and splashes into the Potomac, front bumper first. It floats for a moment, but water quickly floods inside through a shattered windshield. Within seconds, the BMW sedan has submerged and sinks toward the riverbed.
Scott and Hayley continue to fight as the car fills with water. Holding her breath, Hayley reaches again for the door handle in the dark murk of the Potomac water. She is halfway out the open door when Scott grips her arm from behind and hauls her back inside. With his other hand, he tries to undo his own seat belt and succeeds, but the retracting belt becomes ensnared around his neck. He must release his grip on Hayley in order to free himself. Unencumbered, Hayley pushes off from the car seat and jets out the open door, swimming toward the glimmer of lights above.