Savage Road

by Chris Hauty

  Hayley settles in behind her desk. The stack of paperwork that accumulated in her absence yesterday is almost a foot high. “What’s the latest?”

  “Have you been in a coma? We’re getting killed is the latest. Our friends on Capitol Hill are crawling up the president’s ass. The usual criticism. Moscow is behind the cyberattacks, and Monroe refuses to respond because he’s in bed with them, blah blah blah.”

  “POTUS has weathered these storms before,” Hayley says evenly. “Holding off our response until attribution is confirmed is the correct course.”

  “Well, thank you, Madam President. I’ll pass along your decision to the Joint Chiefs.”

  Hayley doesn’t fully register her boss’s snarky comeback, preoccupied with weightier concerns. Has Monroe heard back from his Russian handler? Hayley is determined to connect with the president at some point in the morning.

  “Sir, do you mind if I get to some of this?” She gestures to the paperwork on her desk.

  * * *

  WEDNESDAY, 8:48 A.M. US president Richard Monroe sits on the edge of his bed, wearing only his slacks, socks, and undershirt. He feels a decade older than his sixty-seven years. As if the rigors of being president weren’t enough, acting as a double agent with two masters to placate has taken a toll on both his physical and emotional health. So much for all that talk about the most powerful man on earth. He decided weeks earlier that the situation was no longer sustainable. His mission must end. But how? The path forward is treacherous. If the Americans decide he has become uncooperative, they will expose his true identity and throw him in jail for the rest of his life. If Moscow suspects he has been compromised or is cooperating with US authorities, they will surely have him assassinated. Monroe has no doubt the Kremlin has that capability. Look what they did to Jack Kennedy in response to his humiliation of Russia in the Cuban Missile Crisis.

  In his latest message to Moscow, he crafted a signal subtle enough to fly over the heads of any American operatives who might be monitoring his communications with Belyavskiy. The worry for Monroe, of course, is he was too subtle. What if his masters in the Kremlin failed to interpret his distress call?

  Among his many concerns, large and small, Richard Monroe’s most pressing worry is for his wife, Cindy. He cannot bear the possibility of inflicting emotional pain on the woman. Nor can he imagine life without her. Is there any way forward that avoids either possibility? Monroe thinks not. Cindy will learn the truth about who he is and the country of his birth. That outcome is unavoidable. The most important thing, then, is keeping the two of them together. No matter what, the president must preserve his marriage to a woman he has loved since first laying eyes on her more than four decades ago.

  They met when Monroe was a twenty-three-year-old second lieutenant stationed at Fort Campbell in Kentucky. She was a local girl, just eighteen, and the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in his life. They were married within a year of meeting, and though childless, their marital union has been one of enormous security and contentment. Up until the last two years, Monroe was successful in compartmentalizing his dual identities and shielding his wife from any evidence of his treachery. The integrity of the marriage held fast. All of that changed with Hayley Chill’s bold and entirely true accusation that he was a Russian mole. Her hold over him has imperiled the strong, emotional bonds between Monroe and his wife. More than anything—even a bullet in the back of his head—Richard Monroe fears losing Cindy.

  A gentle knock on his bedroom door lifts the president from his brooding. He raises his gaze to meet his wife’s eyes as she enters.

  Cindy Monroe is still the beauty who knocked Second Lieutenant Richard Monroe off his feet. Put together and styled with sensibly good taste, the First Lady is a tribute to that often awkward and unelected office. Seeing him, sitting on his bed, Cindy is shocked by the transformation of her husband. The responsibilities and stresses of his office have most certainly taken a toll on his physical appearance. With every new day, it seems, Cindy believes he has lost one more pound of weight or gained an additional line in his face. She involuntarily recalls the famous before and after pictures of Abraham Lincoln. The ravages of the sixteenth president’s countenance are only one measure of the monumental difficulties of holding the country together.

  “Darling.”

  “My love.” Monroe stands and warmly embraces his wife.

  “You look so tired. I’m worried about you.”

  “I’m okay. Just a little trouble sleeping, same as any man my age.”

  She nods with a sad, hopeful smile. “We’ll survive this, too, together.” The words are a struggle for her. This man beside her, capable of commanding armies and of passionate love, has been an indestructible force of nature for what seems like forever. Will the presidency prove to be his undoing? So many in Washington are out to undermine him. Cindy detests her husband’s enemies. She is too familiar with the truly great and moral man that he is.

  “Has anyone alive given more of himself for the United States of America than Richard Monroe?” she wonders aloud.

  The president lowers his gaze to the lushly carpeted floor and broods. She has no idea. How could she possibly know just how truly stuck he is?

  “My love,” is all he can think to say. “Thank you. You are such great comfort.”

  The president again contemplates losing her and nearly buckles at the thought of it. He loves her so very much. Monroe considers the notion of telling Cindy—then and there, every shred of truth—if only to relieve the awful loneliness. As quickly as that idea occurs to him, the president dismisses it again. He’d rather die than tell her of his lies. Another time, under different circumstances.

  Cindy sees these fears play across his face. “Darling, what is it?”

  Monroe shakes his head and musters a brave smile. “I’m fine.” He gives her a quick kiss on the lips. “I best finish dressing and get downstairs.”

  As she turns to exit the room, Cindy makes a mental note to speak to her husband’s physician.

  * * *

  THE PRESIDENT HAS finished dressing and sits to put on his shoes. Sensing someone in the doorway, he thinks Cindy may have returned but sees it is Alberto, one of his valets.

  Monroe gestures to the staff person—dark complexioned and in his forties—dismissing him in no uncertain terms. “I’m fine. Thank you.”

  Alberto Barrios, originally from Cuba, arrived in Florida by boat in 2005, under the “wet foot, dry foot” immigration policy. Six feet tall, broad shouldered, with the hooded eyes of a lounge singer and a cleft chin, Barrios seems a collection of disparate human features rather than of one man. With three years of employment in the White House residence, he has compiled a sterling job report. Though the president hasn’t exchanged more than a dozen words with the man—one of six valets—Richard Monroe instinctively likes him.

  The valet fails to withdraw as ordered. Instead, he boldly steps into the bedroom and locks the door behind him. When he stopped at the corner of Fourteenth and I Street, Barrios observed the chalky signal Belyavskiy had left for him. Immediately retrieving a standard, civilian-grade smartphone from his pants pocket, the Cuban agent checked for a coded message from Moscow on an Internet chat board for amateur breeders of pugs. Among topics ranging from pug nutrition and corneal ulcers, he located a thread on the issue of dog training. Posts by a purported breeder with the Internet handle of “The Pug Whisperer” were coded messages left expressly for the White House valet. A graduate of Cuba’s Intelligence Directorate training program on permanent loan to Russia’s GRU, the whip-smart Barrios was able to decipher the message in his head. His orders were clear.

  Richard Monroe, unaware of Barrios’s covert status, is annoyed by the valet’s intrusion into his bedroom. “I don’t need you right now,” he says sharply. “Please, go.”

  Barrios crosses the room. “Stand up, Mr. President,” he says in fluent Russian.

  Stunned to hear his native language coming out of the mouth
of his Cuban-born valet, Monroe is speechless.

  “Please stand, sir.”

  Barrios’s tone compels Monroe to stand.

  “What… what is this all about?”

  “My real name is Julio Carrera. I am an agent of Cuba’s Intelligence Directorate, working in partnership with the GRU.”

  Not yet having regained his bearings, the president looks to the bookshelf holding his Sangamon edition of Carl Sandburg’s biography of Lincoln. “You… ?” he asks.

  Barrios switches to his accented English. In addition to Russian and his native Spanish, he speaks French and Chinese. “Yes. I am the agent responsible for facilitating your communication with Aleksandr Belyavskiy.”

  “But… why am I meeting you now? Like this?” Monroe is worried, fear creeping from the edges of his face. Will this man kill him in his bedroom?

  “Spetssvyaz? Your signal in the last communication was intentional, was it not?”

  “Yes…” His ploy worked!

  “Moscow suspects the Americans discovered your operation here. Was that the meaning of your alert? Have you been compromised?”

  “Compromised?” Monroe is convincing in his shocked disbelief. “No!”

  The Cuban agent, thoroughly trained in interrogation techniques, observes his subject with an eye for psychological tics. No aspect of Monroe’s bearing, facial expression, or the tonal quality of his voice escapes Barrios’s analysis. The president feels as if he’s an insect under a microscope. Monroe only now notices that the valet’s hand rests casually on his shoulder, near the carotid artery, where it is undoubtedly registering his heart rate.

  “I want to ask you again, Yuri Sergeev. Think carefully before you answer. Review in your mind every conversation and meeting you’ve had since your election to the presidency. Every one! Have agents from the CIA or FBI contacted you in regard to Operation Polkan?”

  “Absolutely not,” he responds, more firmly this second time.

  Alberto Barrios says nothing and stares deep into Monroe’s eyes. The president meets his gaze, unflinching, as his breathing becomes so shallow as to be nearly nonexistent.

  “What was the intention of your signal?”

  “I received a briefing from the CIA director that they confirmed intelligence of a Russian mole in the West Wing. A high-level asset. They are actively pursuing that intelligence and have reasonable confidence in identifying the individual.”

  Monroe anticipated the need for an imminent threat to Operation Polkan and gambled the GRU would have no way of confirming it. Though the president is sure Moscow has one or two spies inside the Central Intelligence Agency at any given time—Aldrich Ames being the most infamous example—he can count on the compartmentalized nature of that organization to lend credence to his fabrication.

  “Did the CIA director mention any suspects? Not in their wildest paranoia would the Americans believe the US president is our spy.”

  “They know the asset is someone at the highest reaches, which means they’re working extremely hard to expose him. To expose me!”

  Again, the Cuban betrays no reaction to Monroe’s alarming claims. Barrios was the best student among his peers at G2’s training facility outside Havana. No other candidates even came close when Moscow requested a Cuban agent for special assignment to the GRU. Another decade of fieldwork and expectations are that he will return to his native Cuba. There are whispers back in Havana that an elevation to the minister of the Dirección de Inteligencia is within his reach.

  “I will communicate your report to Moscow. Is there anything else?”

  Monroe checks the time on his wristwatch, already late for his first meeting of the day downstairs. Within the hour, he is slated to travel via Marine One to Andrews AFB for a flight to Cincinnati for the first rally of his reelection effort. “They need to get me out. And my wife. Moscow must exfiltrate both of us, together.”

  The Cuban doesn’t react in the slightest, inscrutable behind his bland expression. With a curt nod, he turns toward the door.

  “I am a patriot!” Monroe hisses after the valet, using his native Russian. “Tell them I have always been a patriot!”

  Barrios unlocks the door and exits without comment.

  * * *

  HE CAME TO the United States aboard the Coral II, a rickety, barnacle-encrusted thirty-foot fishing boat crammed with twenty-one other illegal immigrants intent on a better life. They had left Matanzas, Cuba, at eight in the morning the day before, making the crossing overnight and approaching Islamorada after a seventeen-hour trip. Winds were light and seas mostly calm. The refugees were silent, rendered mute by anxiety and anticipation. Julio Carrera, not yet employing his “Barrios” alias, was twenty-nine and had been in the Cuban intelligence service for five years. He blended in easily with the other immigrants, sharing with them a rough appearance and haunted countenance. Of West African heritage, Julio Carrera suffered his share of racial bias despite living in Cuba’s socialist utopia.

  Another male refugee—redheaded, white as Castro, and in his midfifties—gave him an insolent look in the chaotic boarding process. Julio bumped the man, perhaps not completely by accident. The redhead’s hat, a Panama, was ridiculous. So were his leather shoes. The hard stares between them began with embarkation and continued for most of the voyage. The other immigrants kept their gazes down, but not the insolent redhead. Carrera’s nemesis never stopped shooting dark glances in his direction. Despite the obvious dangers in crossing Estrecho de Florida, the man could focus on little else but his contempt for dark-skinned Carrera, the great-great-grandson of slaves brought to the Caribbean by their Spanish owners to cut sugarcane and toil in the plantation houses. Would the generations-old hate and cruelty of their ancestors spark to life again in a single and inadvertent collision of elbows?

  The boat made landfall without incident. Federal authorities processed Julio Carrera and the other twenty balseros without delay. All were free to go by five p.m., only twelve hours after they had first set foot on US soil. The man with flagrant red hair emerged from the Customs and Border Protection facility in Miami. By taxi, he headed straight to El Mago de las Fritas, home of the best spicy Cuban “hamburger” in town. So intent was the insolent man on sampling El Mago’s frita that he failed to notice Carrera exiting the CBP facility directly after him and following in a second taxi.

  After his lunch, the redheaded man exited the small restaurant in West Miami wonderfully sated. He needed to relieve himself but avoided the busy men’s room in the café. Eighth Street, with four lanes of heavy traffic, offered no privacy. A narrow alley one storefront to the west—running south, all the way to Ninth Street—seemed more promising. The redheaded man ventured there. He walked halfway down the alley, stopped at the side of a trash dumpster, and unzipped, unaware his nemesis from the Coral II was fast approaching. Carrera held in his right hand a four-foot-long two-by-four piece of discarded lumber. Hearing footsteps at the last possible moment, midway through his piss, the redheaded man turned to regard who would walk up on someone so indisposed and saw only the big slab of wood coming at his head.

  * * *

  STANDING WITH OTHER staffers on the South Lawn, where Marine One awaits boarding by the president, Hayley is concerned she has missed her chance to speak with her double agent. She hoped there would have been a moment alone with Monroe sometime after he came down from the residence and before boarding the Marine helicopter for his short trip to Andrews. But the president was uncharacteristically tardy arriving in the Oval Office and was unusually distracted when he did. Typically, Hayley would find an occasion to speak with Monroe in his private study, where there was no possibility of inadvertent eavesdropping or recording device. But, with the compressed schedule due to his departure, the president didn’t set foot in the small suite adjacent to the Oval Office.

  Kyle Rodgers will be traveling with the president and moves to board the chopper. He turns to Hayley for last-minute instructions. “I have the agricultural bill briefin
g?”

  Hayley indicates her boss’s big, leather Buccio Tuscany barrister briefcase, one of his few affectations. “You have it, sir.” She holds a stack of file folders in her arms. “Anything else? I’ll be out of the office at lunchtime.”

  Seeing the president exit the residence and pause to answer questions from the corral of journalists gathered on the circular drive, Rodgers dismisses the other folders in Hayley’s arms. “I’m good.” He joins other high-level aides who will accompany Monroe on his five-hour trip. As per protocol, the president will be the last to board Marine One.

  Finished with the reporters, Monroe strides across the lawn. He waves to invited guests who remain behind a nylon rope far to one side.

  Hayley has a contingency plan. She must act now, regardless of protocol. Leaving the small crowd of staffers gathered on the lawn, she walks quickly across the South Lawn, in a direction that puts her on a path to meet Monroe as he nears the helicopter. Four Secret Service agents immediately move toward Hayley to intercept her.

  “Mr. President!” she shouts, waving one of the folders.

  Monroe sees Hayley. He gestures at his security detail, waving them off. “That’s okay, guys.”

  The Secret Service agents retreat, forming a fifteen-yard-square perimeter around their president. Hayley and the president converge at the Marine helicopter’s stairs, out of earshot of the protective unit.

  She makes a big show of handing Monroe one of the folders from the stack in her arms. “This is the very important folder I neglected to give Kyle,” she says expressionlessly.