Savage Road

by Chris Hauty

  “Yes?” Hayley asks impatiently, pressing.

  “A lotta guys… lost a lotta good guys.” The inelastic tone of his voice suggests Hicks is struggling for composure.

  “Yes, sir. Including my father.”

  “I don’t even know who else was with Tommy when… when all of that happened. Like I said, after ten days of hard fighting, things had kinda busted down. You could be a hundred yards away from a unit, might as well have been on another planet. That place, I tell you, that place was just hell on earth.”

  Hayley didn’t need Hicks to tell her how bad it was there. As an eight-year-old, she learned firsthand the destructive power of war. Unable to accept the truth of his death, she broke into the funeral home where Tommy Chill’s casket had been deposited the day before. Prying open his government-issued coffin, the child bore witness to her father’s obliterated remains. Was it IED or RPG? Was her father’s unit under attack or on the offensive? Had other Marines in his unit been killed at the same time? Who was with her dad when he died, someone who might provide firsthand knowledge of the incident? She has so many questions that demand answers. Despite the years that have passed since her father’s death in Iraq, Hayley becomes enraged all over again. How many more times will she experience this explosive dread?

  “But other men in my dad’s unit survived. They walked out of there. Didn’t they report anything about what happened?”

  Over the phone line, she hears the former Marine mumble to himself, his words garbled and indistinct. How could she have pressed him like this? The man is a ruin, obviously having ducked meeting her in person because of his debilitation. Their phone conversation has revealed the former sniper’s cluttered, little office in the Pentagon is more a spider hole than cushy retirement gig.

  “I’m sorry, sir.”

  Hicks emits only a strained grunt before the phone line goes dead.

  God, what have I done? she wonders with burning regret.

  * * *

  MONDAY, 10:07 A.M. She catches the Blue Line heading north, which travels under the Potomac and into the federal district. Hayley estimates she’ll be at her desk in the West Wing by ten-thirty a.m. As the train leaves the subterranean Pentagon station, she decides it’s time to get back to work in more ways than one. This renewed obsession with her father’s death in Iraq is a vicious spiral that leads only downward. Let the dead stay dead. And leave Charlie Hicks in peace. Further inquiry would be both futile and sadistic. She has enough on her plate already.

  Checking her KryptAll phone before the train heads into the tunnel that goes under the river, Hayley sees she has received a message from Andrew Wilde.

  No further information regarding your intruder.

  So analysis by Publius of the surveillance footage of her apartment break-in proved futile. Hayley isn’t surprised. From the outset, Andrew Wilde was dismissive of her concerns. Is his indifference evidence of the imminent termination of her work for the deeper state? Or was the incident nothing more than a random robbery? To the best of her knowledge, the intruder took only a jar of quarters she kept on the dresser. For someone like Hayley, the uncertainty is maddening. Without one shred of actionable intelligence, there is nothing to be done.

  Her only recourse is to continue operating with her customary caution. She will exercise extreme vigilance for any sign of surveillance or investigation by a bad actor. Nevertheless, Hayley must recognize her position with Publius feels increasingly tenuous. The more she thinks on it—her train reaching its mandated top speed of 59 mph—the less sure Hayley feels about anything.

  She clocks that funny itch on the back of her neck. A sense of foreboding. Seconds later, a terrifying, metal-on-metal screech fills the train car’s interior. Because of that premonition and her excellent reflexes, Hayley can brace herself with both hands against the seat back in front of her a fraction of a second before the entire train bucks violently and lurches to the right. Most passengers are ejected from their seats as the lights flicker off. The nightmarish roller-coaster ride continues for ten agonizing seconds longer, the racket deafening, when the thrusting and violent thuds finally cease. Abrupt silence follows. In those earliest moments, there is only disorientation and disbelief.

  The wails and moaning that rise from the inky gloom are evidence there have been many injuries. Unable to see in the darkness, Hayley runs both hands over her body and finds no injuries. Searching her bag in the dark, she ascertains the KryptAll phone is safely stowed and then retrieves her regular work iPhone. Utilizing the flashlight feature, Hayley observes the scene around her. The train car seems intact, contrary to her earliest fears, but its passengers—she estimates there are approximately twenty in total—lie scattered throughout the length of the carriage.

  Hayley stands and moves forward, illuminating her way in the darkness with her phone. Doing a quick triage on the passengers she encounters, Hayley determines a woman—in her sixties, dress blood soaked—has sustained the most severe injuries. Suspecting the victim’s femoral artery might be bleeding out, Hayley stops there to lend first aid.

  Another man about her age sits on the floor next to the older woman, nursing what looks like a broken left hand.

  “Is your other hand okay?” Hayley asks the young man. He nods, his stunned expression pale in the dim light of her smartphone.

  “Hold my phone. I’ve got to stop her bleeding,” the deeper state operative says, gesturing toward the woman. Her voice—calm and knowing—demands obedience. The young man takes the phone and directs the flashlight downward.

  Hayley pushes the woman’s skirt up to her hip, exposing a gaping wound that pulsates dark blood with every beat of her heart. Checking the gash for any foreign objects, she has difficulty seeing in the unsteady light.

  “Hold still!” she says to her helper. Off his embarrassed expression, Hayley softens her tone. “She’ll lose forty percent of her blood in less than three minutes.”

  “Should we make a tourniquet or something?”

  Hayley has finished her inspection of the wound and is confident there are no foreign objects embedded there. She starts removing her sweater.

  “Unless you happen to have a commercial tourniquet on you, direct pressure is more effective… especially with the femoral artery.”

  With her upper body weight, Hayley presses her rolled-up sweater on the gash. The semiconscious woman moans but doesn’t appear to be in shock.

  “My hand is pretty fucked-up,” the young man says, apropos to nothing.

  Hayley ignores him, focusing her attention on the older woman again. Satisfied the leg is well supported, she leans with most of her weight on the wound. Minutes tick past. The young man looks on, thoroughly chastised. His grip on the phone is steady. Hayley’s calm competence makes a strong impression on him. Tomorrow he will enroll in a free class at the local Red Cross, where he will acquire certification in first aid and CPR. That experience will compel him to return to college, which he never completed, and pursue premed coursework. Five years after the subway accident, he will enter medical school and ultimately acquire his degree, with a specialty in emergency medicine. Throughout a thirty-eight-year career, Hayley’s dragooned helper on the Metro car will save countless lives. He will retire eventually and live a quiet life in Bethesda, Maryland, in the company of kids and grandkids, forgetting entirely the example of the competent, young woman who inspired him to alter his life’s path.

  The woman’s blood loss appears to have been slowed by Hayley’s efforts. “I think she’s going to be okay,” she says to no one in particular.

  Shouts drift into the car from outside, accompanied by flashlights that play across the shattered windows and subway tunnel walls. Having approached via the subway tunnel leading from the Rosslyn station, first responders flood onto the scene within ten minutes of the derailment. Firefighters relieve Hayley.

  “You saved her life,” a firefighter says to the White House staffer as she steps back to give the emergency workers room to do
their job. Hayley doesn’t respond, following other firefighters who lead ambulatory passengers off the train and back up the tunnel illuminated by dozens of helmet-mounted flashlights. Glancing over her shoulder, she sees where the train’s first three cars have jumped the track. Hayley considers herself fortunate to be walking away from the accident without a scratch.

  She treks back to the Rosslyn station through a mostly dark subway tunnel. Thirty minutes later, Hayley finally emerges into daylight again as she climbs the last steps up to the sidewalk along Fort Myer Drive. Bright, spring sunshine casts the scene of pandemonium in a garish light. Emergency personnel give aid to the injured. A growing crowd of gawkers, drawn by media reports, clogs the sidewalks. Police and emergency vehicle sirens wail in every direction. Hayley’s path forward is blocked by the mob of onlookers. Impatient to get back to work, she forces her way through the crowd to the open street, where she hails a passing cab.

  * * *

  MONDAY, 1:03 P.M. When Hayley walks into the office, Kyle Rodgers looks up from work on his desk with an alarmed expression.

  “My God, Hayley, are you okay? Shouldn’t you be at the hospital?” He stands and goes to her.

  “I’m fine, sir. Really.”

  Rodgers points at the blood on her forearms. “You’re bleeding!”

  “Not mine. I was lucky.”

  She allows him to guide her to a chair.

  “You should take the day off.”

  Hayley shakes her head, adamant. “I’ve wasted enough time, sir. Is anybody saying what caused the crash?”

  “Metro’s system network went down. The entire Blue Line was affected. Cyber Jihad claimed responsibility ten minutes after the derailment.”

  “Sir?” Hayley hadn’t even considered the possibility of sabotage.

  “Fort Meade is all over it.”

  “General Hernandez thinks Cyber Jihad is a Russian cover.”

  “I was at the meeting. Remember?”

  She nods, preoccupied. What she really wants to do is question the president whether or not he’d made contact with his GRU handler. Cyber sabotage of Washington’s Metro Blue Line required much more sophisticated skills and premeditation than the hack of the nation’s newspapers. Hayley guesses only a handful of players possess the know-how to hit, with precision, a single line of the district’s mass transit system. With nothing more than a layman’s awareness of signals intelligence, she feels ill-equipped to deal with the looming specter of a first cyber war between superpowers.

  * * *

  MONDAY, 2:15 P.M. Riding in the back of his chauffeured SUV, General Hernandez scans a report compiled by Unit F6. It’s the one department in the entire agency he trusts to get attribution right. Alfred Updike, nominated for a slew of prestigious prizes in computer science and winner of the Turing Award, runs the unit. The team he has assembled is equally superb. Their preliminary analysis of the incident suggests the malware inserted in the Metro’s computer network originated from the same server in Estonia that had been used in the newspaper hack. Fucking Russians. Hitting the New York Times so that a single day’s edition couldn’t make its press run is one thing. But derailing a train in the nation’s capital is a goddamn act of war!

  As if that indignation isn’t enough, now he has to trot over to DHS headquarters to brief that know-nothing cabinet secretary. Plucked from Congress after a long stint manufacturing aircraft and missile systems, what does Clare Ryan know about cyber security? Hernandez, a combat veteran and holding master’s degrees from Defense Intelligence College and USC, resents answering to the refugee from Boeing’s executive offices. Less than one hour after the attack on the Metro, Monroe signed an executive order that expanded DHS mandate, merging it with Cyber Command’s spectrum of operations. Hernandez suspects Kyle Rodgers had something to do with the surprise move by the president, a ham-handed attempt to muzzle him. Fat chance of that happening.

  Almost impossible to believe, Clare Ryan keeps him waiting in the reception area for fifteen minutes past their start time. A television mounted on the wall is tuned to CNN, with the volume turned down. Hernandez watches news coverage of the train derailment. The cyberattack on the newspapers, ironically, generated practically zero press whatsoever. Who cares about newspapers? Today’s media coverage is a different animal entirely. Though there were no fatalities, more than sixty passengers were taken to area hospitals for treatment, and a dozen of them are reported to be in critical condition. Fanned by the cable news hysteria machine, Cyber Jihad’s claim of responsibility stokes fears of Islamic fanatics attacking the nation’s transportation, financial, and utility networks with more and deadlier cyber weapons. In the aftermath of the Metro attack, public hysteria has gone from zero to sixty in a single news cycle. Some pundits—irresponsible nitwits who have no real skin in the game—go so far as to call the derailment of the Blue Line train a precursor to the next 9/11. In Hernandez’s opinion, the Metro attack is a harbinger of far graver dangers than what happened in New York.

  Clare’s assistant replaces her desk phone handset in its cradle. “The secretary is ready for you now, General.”

  Hernandez, wearing his army service uniform, stands and strides through the open door. Secretary Ryan is indeed waiting for him. Alert and relaxed, she stands up from behind an emphatically clean desktop and comes around to shake hands with the director of both the NSA and US Cyber Command.

  “General Hernandez, thank you for coming over to my neck of the woods. Please, take a seat.”

  He follows her into the expansive office. “What can I do for you, Madam Secretary?”

  The general’s bearing isn’t friendly. They are rivals for everything there is to contest in Washington: money, power, and influence. Both recognize that one of them will ultimately prevail over the other. Monroe’s executive order has had the effect of throwing two pit bulls in the same ring, with a raw steak between them. There are no draws in this fight. One winner and one loser. Time will tell.

  Clare suppresses a scoffing laugh. Hernandez’s casually insincere question hardly befits a day of America suffering its worst cyberattack. “General, we’re going to be asked by the president for our recommendation. It’s our responsibility to prepare a measured and thoroughly vetted report, especially considering some of the irresponsible news coverage of the attack. For the sake of the country, it’s time we shelve any animosity between us. A united front is highly preferable.”

  The general is unmoved by Clare’s appeal for cooperation. “My advice to the president will be the same as before. We must respond to the Russian action with a cyberattack of proportionate scope. Anything less than an aggressive and dynamic response will be viewed by our adversary as an indisputable sign of weakness, and accurately so.”

  “You’ve confirmed attribution, with a high level of confidence?” Clare asks with bald skepticism.

  “No, not full attribution. But you can be confident I have my best people on it, Madam Secretary.”

  “By best, I assume you mean Alfred Updike?”

  “F6 has been on this since before the attack on the newspapers.”

  “Good. I would love to see the report.”

  Hernandez visibly stiffens. “The data is still pretty raw.”

  “President Monroe’s executive order mandates our cooperation, General.”

  Hernandez looks like he’s just taken a spoonful of lukewarm castor oil. “You’re not getting your paws on F6. Updike is mine!”

  Clare is unfazed by the director’s outburst. “I could be persuaded to ease off. The Department of Homeland Security has mathematicians on staff as gifted as anyone over at Savage Road. But I need to know that we’re all on the same team.”

  Hernandez has managed to compose himself. Losing his temper will help nothing. “What do you want, Madam Secretary?”

  Clare smiles lightly. Male blowhards like Hernandez have been a fixture in a professional life that included Boeing and the House of Representatives. “If we’re going to advise the pres
ident to start a cyber war, attribution can be nothing short of gold plated, General.”

  As he suspected, the executive order was Kyle Rodgers’s attempt to silence him. That’s tough. Hernandez has no intention of playing nice if it means ignoring his patriotic obligation to punish the Russian bear. “You’re free to tell POTUS whatever you please.”

  Clare frowns, her voice flattened by sarcasm. “How kind of you. I’ll try remembering your generosity when Russia responds to the NSA’s provocation by moving troops into Ukraine.”

  Hernandez shrugs. “Moscow does as Moscow wants.” He turns for the door.

  “Can my people see the report? What F6 has come up with by way of analytics?” she asks to his back.

  Hernandez barely pauses on his way out. “Keep checking your inbox, Madam Secretary.”

  * * *

  HAYLEY DOESN’T LEAVE the White House complex until ten that night. The fresh air and balmy temperature—a harbinger of muggy days to come—is a relief after being cooped up in the West Wing. Following the Metro attack, simmering concerns about the nation’s cyber security have exploded into a real crisis. Monroe rises to the occasion, of course, presenting just the right measure of calm leadership and firm resolve. He “plays” president well, which might explain why Moscow covertly drafted him as a candidate for the nation’s highest office. For the time being, at least, the Metro attack has had the positive effect of silencing Monroe’s critics. Among administration staffers, hopes for a second term have been reignited.

  Hayley knows better. Over the past twenty months, she has witnessed the president’s terrible mood swings and depression. Even without the psychological training received at the deeper state’s training site in Oregon, she understands that Richard Monroe desperately craves escape from his impossible predicament.