Savage Road

by Chris Hauty

  “Spetssvyaz? This is what Polkan asked? About Spetssvyaz?” Tabakov’s reaction is so extravagant that spittle shoots from his mouth and splatters on the Carrington painting. Only Belyavskiy seems to notice the artwork’s defacement. He refrains from mentioning it. Senior officers from the Spetsnaz GRU aren’t renowned for their appreciation of the absurd.

  “Yes, sir. He specifically said Spetssvyaz.”

  Tabakov broods for a moment, turning away from the other man as if he didn’t even exist. “Mention this to no one. Understand? No one!” He flips another sunflower seed into his mouth.

  “Sir?”

  The senior GRU officer pauses to spit out the seed husks and says in a tone of voice reminiscent of an impatient grade school teacher, “Polkan knows Spetssvyaz is a defensive unit, you fool. He could have chosen from a dozen different units, official or unsanctioned, that perform this sort of work. Instead, he chooses the only one that wouldn’t do this sort of work, not in a million years! This could be a signal that Polkan’s under suspicion… or worse! His communications with us might be compromised!”

  Belyavskiy is slightly taken aback by his superior’s hysteria, just more paranoia revolving around their golden goose in the Oval Office. “But how shall I respond, sir? Was it our boys who did it? Or the FSB? The derailment of the American train seemed just the perfect degree of harassment. They don’t dare retaliate!” No sooner than he finishes speaking these words, Belyavskiy feels his face reddening. He’s done it now.

  Tabakov gawks at Belyavskiy as if the junior man has lost his mind. “Who knows who did it? I don’t concern myself with such things and nor should you!” These last words escape the GRU officer’s mouth as a hiss, between clenched teeth. He turns to leave and then stops, facing his underling again. “Not a word to anyone until I’ve made my report to Moscow, Belyavskiy Not one word!”

  The senior GRU officer stomps off, leaving the partially masticated seed husks scattered on the gallery floor. He can’t get out of the museum fast enough. Women artists? Ridiculous!

  Belyavskiy waits until his superior has disappeared through the gallery’s entryway and then turns to face the Carrington painting again. Long an avid aficionado of the mystical and folktales, he finds the images mesmerizing. Composing a response to Russia’s mole inside the White House can wait five minutes.

  3

  THE WEASEL

  Tuesday, 9:25 a.m. Kyle Rodgers brings Hayley with him into the Oval Office to take notes. The president’s first order of business is a call with the secretary for Homeland Security, who had requested a sit-down meeting. Monday’s attack on the DC Metro train has moved the issue of cyberterrorism front and center. As a White House operator connects the ever-determined Clare Ryan with Richard Monroe, Hayley reflects on her breakfast with the cabinet secretary two hours earlier. Clare was entirely respectful, her appeal for “collaboration” refreshingly pragmatic. Hayley appreciates straight talk, a rarity in Washington, and admires the older woman’s apparent dedication to the country. In the few seconds before Clare Ryan’s voice comes over the phone console’s speakerphone, Hayley decides she will cooperate with the cabinet secretary.

  “Mr. President, thank you for taking my call.”

  “Of course, Clare. Any success with attribution for this Metro business?”

  Hayley studies the president closely. He seems off, lacking his usual calm and forceful demeanor. It was Richard Monroe’s charismatic persona—war hero and effective communicator—that had stunned the nation and won an electoral victory more than two years before. Moscow could not have anticipated a more convincing deep-cover agent. But she can see the events of the last few days have taken their toll on the president. He seems haggard and on edge.

  “No, sir. Attribution will take time… potentially much more time. Which is why I want to emphasize caution. Immediate retaliation of any kind ought to be out of the question.”

  “Yes, yes. I haven’t forgotten your position, Clare. But I can’t be seen doing nothing.”

  “I understand, sir.”

  Monroe slides a look toward Kyle Rodgers. Into the phone, he says, “Folks over here worried a presidential address might elevate the stature of the attack. Make these sonsabitches bigger than they really are.”

  “I would concur with that advice, Mr. President,” Clare says.

  “Perhaps you can get out front of it. Put a face on our absolute resolve. Hold a press conference, okay? Dampen the speculation. Diminish fears of further attacks.”

  “Yes, sir. Of course, I’ll make arrangements the second we get off the phone. I can speak from over here. Limited questions from the press. That sort of thing.”

  “Yes, that’s good. Thank you, Clare.”

  “What’s truly needed, Mr. President, is a broader mandate for the DHS, above and beyond your executive order. Civilian targets are woefully defenseless. Working with Congress, we—”

  Monroe cuts her off. “Long term, Clare. After the dust settles.”

  “Sir—”

  “Thank you, Clare. I’ll be watching later today. I’m sure you’ll be just great!”

  Kyle Rodgers disconnects the call for Monroe.

  The president says, “That woman is going to make a helluva president someday.”

  “General Hernandez is next, sir.”

  “These two should just get a room.”

  Rodgers laughs mildly at Monroe’s joke. Hayley, sitting in a chair to the side with notepad open on her knee, remains expressionless.

  “Don’t write that down,” he needlessly instructs Hayley.

  “No, Mr. President.”

  “Shall I connect the general, sir?” Rodgers asks.

  “Yes. Let’s keep going, Kyle.”

  Rodgers presses the necessary buttons.

  “Mr. President! Thank you for giving me a few minutes, sir!” The NSA director’s voice booms from the console speaker, fortified by the conviction that he is making history. Cyber Jihad is his Cuban Missile Crisis.

  “What do you have for me, Carlos?”

  “We were able to locate the exploit in the transit system’s computers used by the attackers.”

  The president nods, peering into space with great intensity. “I see.”

  “Sir, the actual coding of the malware isn’t terribly sophisticated. Any computer science major could write the lines of software. What takes advanced skill and understanding is knowing how and where to place it in the Metro’s network. The hack represents a textbook ‘gray-zone aggression,’ precisely targeted, with the clear intent of taking down the Blue Line. Few global actors have that capability, all of them nation states. This is no jihadist or lone wolf behind these attacks. The operation has the Kremlin written all over it.”

  “Gray zone?”

  “Sir, gray-zone conflict is state-sponsored activities that are coercive and aggressive, but deliberately designed to remain below the threshold of conventional military conflict and open war. A gray-zone operation is an ambiguous and usually incremental aggression.”

  “Okay,” says Monroe with something well short of presidential authority. Hernandez’s eagerness to pin the cyberattacks on Moscow seems to rattle Monroe. He sits upright in his chair again and props his head up with one hand while scratching his scalp with the other.

  “What’s your confidence level on these findings, Carlos?”

  “Moderate, sir.”

  Monroe exchanges a look with Kyle Rodgers.

  Hernandez takes the silence over the phone line as an indication of the president’s skepticism. “We started with a set of plausible actors, sir, based on the nature of the attack, the target, and the incident context. In our analysis, we’re careful to avoid cognitive bias, using analysis of competing hypotheses and other proven analytic systems. By evaluating multiple competing hypotheses based on the observed and uncovered data, Mr. President, we narrow down our list of potential actors. Sir, I expect to assign the highest level of confidence to our analysis within a matter of days
, if not hours.”

  As the NSA director drones on about the basis for his determination, Hayley continues to observe Monroe, seeing in him an uptick of nervous anxiety. She hides her concern, wearing a mask of professional attentiveness.

  Hernandez’s voice becomes more strident. “Mr. President, the Russians are testing us. That’s the goal of any gray-zone aggression. We absolutely need to respond, within the same strategic sphere. But doing so requires executive action. Our hands are tied without your direct command.”

  Monroe reacts to the NSA director’s hectoring by slapping his right palm down on the desk.

  “Thank you for reminding me I’m the one in charge, goddammit!”

  “Sir—”

  “Do your job, Carlos, and I’ll do mine!” the president shouts into the speakerphone before disconnecting the call with an emphatic stab of his finger.

  Kyle Rodgers, mindful of Monroe’s volatile mood swings, keeps his voice extra calm and nonjudgmental. “I’ll circle back with him, Mr. President.”

  Monroe’s outburst concerns his most trusted advisor. POTUS needs to keep his shit together; they are only at the beginning of a growing national crisis and the president’s schedule is absolutely jammed today. Rodgers can’t help but recall the chaos, indecision, and lack of action that greeted the recent catastrophic pandemic.

  “Fort Meade is a strange place, sir. Folks over there, they’re just different.”

  The president looks down at his desktop, as if unable to meet his advisor’s eyes. “I need a few minutes before my next thing.”

  Hayley and her boss withdraw from the room without another word, exchanging a glance on their way out.

  They stop in the corridor outside the Oval Office.

  “Thoughts?” Kyle Rodgers asks Hayley, clearly referring to the president’s emotional state. “You’re the one with the ‘special relationship’ with him.”

  Ignoring her boss’s pointed gibe, Hayley says, “The president is good, sir. Rock-solid.”

  Kyle Rodgers nods curtly. He wants to believe her assessment is accurate. They head off in opposite directions.

  * * *

  TUESDAY, 10:40 A.M. Rafi Zamani takes Yazat outside after a long, lazy morning just kicking back and watching television, mostly Premier League football. Morning showers have given way to a sky lightly populated with benign, white clouds. As a rabid supporter of Manchester United, Rafi dons a Paul Pogba jersey, one of three he owns. This kit is his oldest and most favorite, seemingly bringing good fortune to his team whenever he wears it on game day. Yazat craps within ten seconds of stepping out the door, but Rafi decides a walk might be nice, so continues without bothering to pick up after his dog. It’s going to be another beautiful spring day, with temperatures in the high sixties. Perfect riding weather, Rafi muses. Even Yazat—usually dragging his ass around the block as if to the slaughterhouse—seems to have a little jaunt to his step.

  Rafi continues to feel the buoyant afterglow left by the train derailment, instigated by a few keystrokes on his laptop. Watching all those jerks coming out of the tunnel was an absolute kick. He should’ve stayed the hell away from anything that even smelled like the Metro Blue Line but, fuck it, how often can a hacker put eyes on the fruits of his labor? The Metro malware executed flawlessly. The damage was limited to the Blue Line’s grids, leaving the rest of the servers untouched. Flawless. As-salamu alaykum, motherfuckers. Cyber Jihad strikes again! The next exploit he has lined up is dope, too. With any luck, the Boss will contact him soon with the go-ahead.

  Rafi is annoyed that Yazat is stopping at every parking meter, signpost, and fire hydrant to piss. He gives the French bulldog a pull as two dudes about his age approach from the opposite direction. Once he gets Yazat moving again, Rafi turns and only then sees the young men, stopped and standing in his path. One of them—the shorter guy dressed in baggy jeans and Adidas T-shirt—says something. But Rafi, Iron Pony snapback pulled down tight on his head, is streaming Martin Garrix over his earbuds and can’t hear a goddamn thing. He reluctantly presses the side of his right earbud, silencing the music.

  “—that some kinda bulldog, man?” the shorter guy finishes asking.

  “French.” Rafi doesn’t speak with any kind of accent. But dressed in that trippy, red soccer jersey, with black hair, feminine eyebrows, and a dark complexion, he looks to the two dudes from Edgewood like just another freak from God knows where in the world. Pakistan? India? What difference does it fucking make anyway?

  “Gimme your dog, man.” The shorter guy says this, but it’s the taller one who bends down to snatch Yazat.

  Rafi steps between the muggers and his dog. “Not a fucking chance.”

  The taller guy stands up straight again and pulls an ancient-looking Röhm RG-14 .22 revolver—a gun made infamous by John Hinckley in his assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan—from under his waistband. He has brought the gun only halfway up toward Rafi’s face when he experiences the bizarre sensation of a four-inch blade plunged into the center of his throat. Rafi yanks his right hand back from the taller guy’s neck, withdrawing the knife with a twisting motion. Blood geysers from the wound. The gunman drops to his knees and keels forward comically flat on his face, extremely dead.

  The gunman’s friend turns to run in the direction they came but is caught by his shirt by Rafi and hauled backward. Rafi, right-handed, sets the edge of his knife’s blade on the right side of the dude’s throat, just above the collarbone and pushes a deep, oblique, long incised injury across the front of the neck. He makes a shallow cut at the beginning that tapers off at the opposite side, leaving a tail abrasion. With this unorthodox technique, Rafi has ensured forensic investigators will file their reports with the grim conviction that the perpetrator is left-handed. Obfuscation is the name of the game, yo.

  Holding the dead man upright, Rafi releases his grip on the back of the guy’s shirt and allows him to fall to the sidewalk. Yazat, that little putz, is lapping up the first guy’s blood, forcing his owner to give his leash a firm yank. With possible witnesses in mind, Rafi looks around his environs and sees no one. He bends down and picks up his dog—the better to make a fast getaway—and notices a speck of blood on the sleeve of his lucky football jersey. From the second kill, he speculates. Determined to keep his Pogba kit pristine, Rafi heads for a corner 7-Eleven across the street and up the block.

  He pushes the door open and enters the convenience store, still carrying Yazat under his arm. No one is inside other than the clerk behind the cash register. Darting to the cooler stacks, Rafi retrieves a bottle of soda water. The clerk, an older Ethiopian man, rings up the purchase. Handing over two bucks, Rafi sees three closed-circuit surveillance camera monitors on a shelf behind the Ethiopian. The center monitor displays the street outside, angled up the block so that the two bodies lying scattered on the opposite sidewalk are plainly visible.

  The clerk makes change and offers it to his customer.

  Rafi doesn’t make a move to collect the coins but simply stares at the old Ethiopian. Only now does he clock the old man’s terror. Yazat squirms in his master’s arm.

  “Your change, sir,” the clerk says, with eyes that plead for mercy. The old man recalls the faces of his children. He hears their laughter around the dinner table. And remembers the violence of his country during his childhood. Every day a cycle of waking, death, and hunger. His lips move with a muttered prayer.

  At my lowest, God is my Hope. At my darkest, God is my Light.

  * * *

  TUESDAY, 11:17 A.M. They were heading back to the station house, having handled a van fire on Sixteenth Street, when a call came over the radio of multiple injuries at O Street and Wisconsin Avenue. Sam’s unit, Engine Company 5, might get a dozen calls like this in a shift. Consequently, he was relaxed enough to let his thoughts drift to Hayley again. Yes, Sam told her he would wait for her to reach out. But since their conversation during her walk home from work the evening before, he hasn’t stopped thinking about the White H
ouse staffer. Crazy, right? Though Sam had done his share of dating, he can’t remember another woman with whom he so easily and so quickly connected.

  Well, no woman since Mara Paladino.

  Sam McGovern grew up in Falls Church, Virginia, and the oldest of four children. To the surprise of none of his friends, he made no efforts to apply for college following graduation from high school. His dad, a bartender at a local tavern, couldn’t have cared less about the decision. But his mother, who worked for the school district as a librarian, was quietly devastated. Sam knew he wanted to be a fireman since middle school and for all the dopey reasons a kid might be so inclined. When he was ten years old, Sam saw a photograph in a magazine of a fireman—face covered in soot and self-contained breathing apparatus—carrying a baby out of a burning row house. The image stuck to him like gum on the bottom of his shoe. Sam wanted to be a hero. He worked toward paramedic certification through high school and won it when he was eighteen, the earliest possible age. Earning admission to the DC Fire Department training academy on his nineteenth birthday was a foregone conclusion.

  He lived at home for a time, when he wasn’t staying over at the DCFD Engine 5 firehouse on Dent Place. After months of commuting between Falls Church and the “Nickel” in Georgetown, Sam moved into a condo with some guys from the department. The place was essentially a frat house and could be pretty disgusting at times, but Sam enjoyed the camaraderie. These were his college years, in a way, with all the drinking and carousing associated with that traditionally carefree existence. Life was good. During this time, he wasn’t looking for anything serious in his relationships with women. How he met Mara was nuts, actually, like out of some dumb television show. But rescuing her from her burning loft studio, where she painted her huge canvases, was exactly how it happened. No, he didn’t carry her out in his arms. But his face was indeed covered with soot and, sure, maybe he did take her by the arm passing through the front door.