Savage Road

by Chris Hauty

  Those eighteen months were like holding a tiger by the tail. Sam had never met a woman like Mara, every minute with her an exercise in exhilaration tempered by exhaustion. For every high he experienced with his lover, a new low was certain to follow. He can’t recall how many times they “broke up” in that year and a half. A dozen times, maybe? For Sam, the firehouse was a welcome reprieve from an all-consuming romantic relationship. Mara, however, complained bitterly that their difficulties interfered with her artistic endeavors. The romance finally died in the way these things always do, when Mara met some writer dude in the waiting room of the local veterinarian where she had brought her sick dog. The end was blessed relief for both of them.

  After Mara, he cooled to the notion of a regular relationship with a woman. Sam is still young, with a seemingly unlimited future ahead. No need to jump back into the ring. Though the Mara debacle left minimal psychological and emotional scarring, Sam nevertheless has put faint effort into dating since that tumultuous period of his life. Now, this new thing has happened. Hayley Chill has happened, appearing from out of nowhere at Darlington House. As if a referee decided that the fireman has had enough time in the penalty box. And Sam is okay with it, willing to take a run at real romance. That decision made, he doesn’t want to blow his chances by seeming too eager or needy. So, as Engine 5 brakes to a hard stop on O Street and Sam jumps off the truck with his fellow firefighters, he decides he won’t call Hayley. He’ll leave it up to her to make the next move.

  His unit is the first on the location, alerted by a bystander’s 911 call. Sam can’t remember the last time the cops have beaten their truck to a 10-53 (man down) and takes pride in the team’s efficiency and speed. He sees the two bodies on the sidewalk and, crouching down beside them, knows immediately that both victims are as dead as dead can be. One victim—black male, twenties—is throat cut, his blood pooling to a three-foot radius on the sidewalk. The other victim—black male, late teens—has what looks like a single puncture to the throat. A cheap revolver lies on the sidewalk less than a foot from the second man’s hand. There is nothing for Sam or his fellow firefighters to do but keep bystanders from trampling on the crime scene and wait for the cops to arrive.

  But, as he is just sitting back on his heels, he hears screaming. Sam looks to his left, up the block toward Wisconsin, and sees a woman in a 7-Eleven parking lot waving frantically in their direction. He stands and takes off running, EMT kit in hand, accompanied by one of his firefighter housemates.

  The woman in the parking lot gyrates in circles, sobbing hysterically, as the two firefighters arrive. She gestures toward the store, gasping and unable to formulate the words. But her intent is clear. Sam and Rick, his housemate, run toward the convenience store entrance. Pushing through the glass doors, they find another woman standing opposite the register. She is pale white and wide-eyed, staring down at the floor behind the counter. Rick goes to the woman and starts to ask if she’s okay. Sam hears nothing of what his partner says or how the other woman responds because he has gone to the counter and looks over the other side. He sees an adult male lying in a pool of blood, his throat gashed. Sam knows there is no saving anyone here, either.

  * * *

  TUESDAY, 12:31 P.M. Hayley takes a bag lunch to the Mall, a habit that she developed as a White House intern. The midday meal is the same as always: peanut butter and jelly sandwich, apple, and bottle of water. She takes comfort in the routine and simplicity of this lunch tradition, one that she can indulge only on slow days when the weather allows. The crush of work hasn’t abated, but she leaves the White House complex anyway, needing time and some distance from the West Wing to think.

  She is, by custom, decisive. Since her earliest childhood, Hayley has possessed an almost unnatural ability to take the appropriate action at the appropriate time. Her gut instincts are uncannily accurate. Given those attributes, then, how to explain her current vacillation? The imprecise nature of Wilde’s orders to assist April Wu is one reason for Hayley’s uncertainty. Assist her, how exactly? How much? Hayley’s gnawing anxiety is aggravated by the deeper state’s apparent lack of confidence in her. What has she done to incur their distrust? Her performance has been letter-perfect since the first days of the mission.

  Running Richard Monroe as a double agent for Publius is her primary responsibility. With the growing crisis surrounding Cyber Jihad’s repeated attacks on the United States, however, Hayley’s office in the West Wing is beginning to feel more like a gilded cage. How can she possibly be of any service in the pursuit of America’s cyber tormentors? What good is she to the deeper state if not a valued participant in this most immediate emergency?

  Hayley is just finishing her food when her phone buzzes. Hayley doesn’t recognize the number but answers anyway.

  “Hello?”

  “What are you doing out of the office, slacker?” April’s voice booms from the handset. “Where are you?”

  “Sitting on the Mall, eating lunch. What can you tell me over an open line?”

  “Nothing you don’t already know. The trail goes cold after Estonia. I think those little weasels in the upstairs are holding out on us.”

  “The NSA analysts?”

  “Correct.”

  Internecine battles between federal agencies is a fact of life in Washington, as welcome as the tourists that flood the city every spring and summer. The players like to complain about the turf wars and budget battles, but, in reality, it’s the bureaucrat’s version of close-quarter combat that makes the drudgery of governance halfway fun. And information is the Saturday night special of these DC gang wars. Gossip and innuendo is a poison, weaponized and used at an antagonist’s discretion. Secrets never die. They don’t fade away. Confidences are forever.

  Hayley can think of someone in her immediate history for whom veiled confidences were the foundation of his lengthy career. A man with a map of where the bodies have been buried.

  “What’s your plan?” asks Hayley.

  “Slap the weasels around. You?”

  “Didn’t have a clue until this phone call.”

  April asks, “Have any weasels in mind?”

  “I do. Talk later.”

  Hayley disconnects. In the shadow of the Washington Monument, she pauses to look down the Mall to the Lincoln Memorial. Hayley has always loved this particular monument, more than any other. Abraham Lincoln is her favorite president, both in character and political bent. The sixteenth president’s national memorial stirs pride in her heart, for her country and its best moments.

  In the dark hours before the assassination attempt on Richard Monroe, Hayley took refuge in Lincoln’s memorial shortly after midnight. The would-be assassins had uncovered her identity and were in hot pursuit, but she was able to snatch a few hours of much-needed sleep. She prevailed in that struggle against a secret, government cabal and its mercenaries, intent on an overthrow of the executive branch. Those few hours of refuge in the famous landmark played no small part. Hayley never misses the chance to express gratitude to Mr. Lincoln. She has a distinct feeling that his laconic inspiration will be a necessity in the days ahead.

  * * *

  TUESDAY, 3:11 P.M. Federal Correctional Institution, Cumberland, is a little over 130 miles from Washington, on Maryland’s side of the border with Pennsylvania. Classified as a medium-security federal prison for male inmates, it is no country club. The single coil wire reinforced concertinas are real. Current inmates include Masoud Khan, leader of the Virginia jihad network; Jeffrey MacDonald, former US Army doctor who murdered his wife and two children at Fort Bragg; and Ed Brown, Sovereign Citizen movement member convicted of conspiracy for stockpiling bombs and firearms during an eight-month standoff with the FBI. Parking in the visitor’s lot after the two-hour drive from Washington, Hayley shudders as she walks briskly toward the prison’s entrance. The thought of being consigned here for the rest of her natural life is simply too awful to contemplate. What if her covert work for the deeper state somehow landed he
r in this place? She studies the facility and its surroundings for possible security weaknesses.

  She is directed to the visiting room after a brief interview by the front lobby officer and takes a seat at the table indicated to her by FCI personnel. No other visitors are present. Though supervision exists in the form of the four guards positioned at various places around the room (augmenting a dozen closed-circuit surveillance cameras), there is no Plexiglas or direct-connect phones. She will be within arm’s reach of the subject of her interview. His breathing will be audible to her. Their scents will comingle. It will be remarkable, indeed, to see him again.

  He enters through a far door and approaches Hayley, seated at a table underneath the high windows that line one wall of the room. She can see James Odom has shaved off the beard he wore as the CIA deputy director in charge of the Office of Intelligence Integration. His integral role in Operation Damocles, so-called by its conspirators, earned him what is essentially a life sentence and incarceration here at FCI Cumberland. The stated goal of Damocles was to counter Richard Monroe’s political agenda, and the first step was the assassination of the president’s chief of staff, Peter Hall. It was Hall’s murder, staged to look like a fatal heart attack, that Hayley inadvertently discovered. Undercover as a White House intern, she unraveled a conspiracy that culminated in the attempt on Monroe’s life. For much of that ordeal, she was entirely on her own in countering the cabal’s efforts. James Odom, the primary conspirator and true architect of Operation Damocles, came close to exposing Hayley and eliminating her as a threat. Seeing her again, a little more than one year of incarceration, brings a surprising smile to his face… surprising because the White House intern put him in this prison. The former CIA deputy director, a true connoisseur of tradecraft, continues to wish he recruited Hayley Chill. Then and now, Odom has no clear idea of her employers. Despite a lifetime spent in intelligence, there are some things even he couldn’t imagine to be true.

  Shoulders squared and walking tall, Odom shows none of the common fatigue induced by long-term incarceration on older inmates. He takes a seat at the table, directly opposite Hayley. “You’ve lost weight, my girl.”

  “And you’ve shaved off your beard, sir.”

  “Without it, I believe I look younger. Turned seventy last month. What do you think?”

  “For your age, sir, you look very good.”

  He appears pleased by her comment.

  “I have a job in the license plate manufacturing center. Isn’t that something? The trope is one hundred percent accurate.”

  Hayley nods appreciatively. “Government vehicle plates. I see them countless times a day, sir.”

  Odom grins, seemingly delighted to be present in Washington in this insignificant way. “The food here is surprisingly good. I’ve been getting regular exercise. And I see my wife once a week and the kids and grandkids every other month or so. It’s not so bad, really. I’ve even made a friend or two. Ugo Annovazzi. Have you heard of him? He’s been here since ninety-two, serving a life sentence for racketeering and murder. Ugo is boss of the Lucchese family, eighty-eight and still giving orders from federal prison. Have to admire that kind of stamina, don’t you?”

  “I wouldn’t know, sir.” She allows Odom this time to air out whatever is on his mind, hoping to win his cooperation.

  “And you, my girl? Whither Richard Monroe’s good luck charm?”

  “I’m still at the White House, sir, paid now, thankfully.”

  “Worth every penny.” He pauses, sizing her up. You may take the old spy out of the CIA, but you never really take the CIA out of the old spy. “Why are you here? Not for a victory lap or out of morbid curiosity. I know you at least as well as that.”

  “Cyber Jihad.”

  “Yes? What of it?” Odom seems alarmingly uninterested.

  “Do you know them, sir? Who might they be?”

  He shrugs.

  “Please, sir. Whatever you can offer would be helpful. The president is under tremendous pressure to respond.”

  “Well, that’s his job, isn’t it? He was elected because the voters thought him best to perform under pressure.” Odom says the last two words as if describing a sex act.

  “Deputy Director Odom, sir—”

  Odom interrupts her, smiling. “Dear girl, I haven’t been called by that title for some time. Very kind of you.”

  “But what are your thoughts, sir? The attacks on the newspapers and Metro Blue Line.”

  “Cyber Jihad. You said so yourself.”

  “That could be anybody.”

  “Or it could be real, live Islamic terrorists.”

  Hayley nods and says, “Or real, live Islamic terrorists, yes.”

  The former CIA man says nothing, just curiously watching Hayley. He’s waiting for her to make the next move.

  “Somehow, I have the feeling you know more than what you’re letting on, sir.”

  “You think this business might be the handiwork of one or more of my old pals?”

  “I haven’t a clue, which is why I’ve come to you.”

  “ ‘Who’ isn’t so important as ‘why.’ Someone with your acumen should know that much.”

  Hayley frowns, uninterested in his cryptic games.

  “Why is who,” Odom says.

  “Sir, innocent lives could be at stake. Any actionable intelligence you can offer to help us.”

  “Actionable intelligence?” he asks mockingly. He casts his gaze around the visitation room. “Who wants to know?”

  He turns his gaze to meet hers. She understands. The authorities are listening.

  Hayley’s hands folded on the tabletop pick up the slightest vibration. Dropping her gaze to Odom’s hands, she sees the index finger of his right hand is ever so delicately tapping out a code. She recognizes the pattern immediately.

  Based on a Polybius square using a five-by-five grid of letters, the tap code is most commonly used by prisoners of war to communicate silently, from cell to cell. Like any intelligence trainee, Hayley received instructions on utilizing the tap code while at the Publius facility in Oregon. Odom’s desire for their conversation to proceed clandestinely is unmistakable. Hayley’s prodigious gift for memorization facilitates that process. The system involves up to five taps of the finger for each letter, pausing between each one. It’s a laborious methodology, but for short messages, it serves the purpose.

  With his subtle finger taps, Odom asks her, Who do you work for?

  Hayley taps out, usa.

  Odom grins. work for me.

  After Hayley has computed the meaning of Odom’s finger taps in her head, she reacts to his request with consternation.

  Odom repeats the message. work for me.

  Hayley taps her response. i work for rm.

  The CIA man’s next message requires a dizzying number of finger taps. Hayley watches, decrypting in her head the message’s content.

  He repeats the final message to ensure she understands.

  i help you help me.

  i help you help me.

  Before Hayley can respond, one of the correctional officers approaches.

  “You two just going to stare at each other for another ten minutes?” he asks, checking the wall-mounted clock. “Time’s up. C’mon, miss.”

  She stands up from the table. Odom remains seated, offering her a small wave and smiling eyes as Hayley follows the guard toward the exit.

  * * *

  GETTING BEHIND THE wheel of her car in the parking lot outside the prison’s administrative building, Hayley broods on what her former nemesis said—and hadn’t said—in their meeting.

  Why is who.

  I help you help me.

  The setting sun’s rays slant through the open driver’s window. A glorious spring sunset is in the offing, a pleasant contrast to the morning’s dreary weather.

  You help me.

  Fearing an erosion of power accumulated after decades of government service, James Odom led a nearly successful effort to ki
ll a US president. He tried to kill her. Is the current cyber crisis so severe that she should offer her assistance to a man capable of cold-blooded murder?

  Hayley reaches for the ignition and starts the car. She’ll do her job without that old weasel’s help.

  * * *

  HAYLEY HAS FOUGHT with her fists for much of her life. Those pugilistic skills, refined in the military, were evident when she was young. Growing up in rural West Virginia meant fighting tooth and nail, or risk losing everything. She was the Sixth Army’s female welterweight champ and the pride of ARSOUTH. But since coming to Washington, the West Wing staffer hasn’t spent a single minute in a boxing ring. Missing the challenge and camaraderie of personal combat, Hayley intends to get back into the ring one day, when she’s not pulled in a million different directions at once. Nevertheless, the deeper state operative still trains like the amateur boxing champion she once was.

  Morning jogs followed by military calisthenics in her apartment is her typical regimen, every day if her work schedule allows it. Running, especially, clears her head of extraneous and distracting thoughts. She can focus. So, after the two-hour drive back from Cumberland, Hayley changes into her army T-shirt and shorts. She laces up her running shoes. With an uncluttered mind, she hopes to recall every detail of the Metro incident and examine the entire sequence in its most complete recollection. She can be her own best eyewitness.

  She begins to run after dusk, the sky glooming. People hurrying home after work crowd the sidewalks. Hayley weaves through the pedestrians without effort or slackening her fast pace, as if by echolocation. She chooses a different route than usual, heading north on Fourteenth Street. Through Cardozo and Columbia Heights. Her mind wanders, flipping through a catalog of images from the derailment and its aftermath. She hears the shriek of metal on metal as the carriages ahead jump the track. Sees the woman’s pale face, unaware of the blood that gushes from the femoral artery in her thigh. Flashlights dart against the cement tunnel walls. A rat scurries between her legs. Hayley does not attempt to filter or organize these impressions and memories as they flit past her mind’s eye. With steady and robust running cadence, she passes through Crestwood and runs farther north. Into the Heights. Then Brightwood. No detail of the incident she recalls raises her suspicions or strikes her as out of place. She keeps running. Holds a strong pace. Into the leafy suburbs of Takoma and the terminus of Fourteenth Street. Veering left, at Aspen Street. Entering expansive Rock Creek Park.