Savage Road

by Chris Hauty

  As she jogs, sweating heavily now, April begins to doubt the likelihood of the Iron Pony Tap Room being open. She has indeed experienced the disorder that results from a blackout in the past, but nothing like this one. Given the rapidly deteriorating situation in the city, April wouldn’t be surprised if the bar is burnt to the ground or overrun by plunderers. It’s awe inspiring, really, the destructive power a networked world invests in a single person.

  A lone hacker is responsible for all of this mayhem, she muses. If the NSA’s Unit F6 employs Zamani, then he must be unusually talented. A computer engineer from Alfred Updike’s team would know about the country’s most potent exploits, whether offshore or domestic. That was their job. Left unchecked, Rafi Zamani has the capability of inflicting horrific pain and suffering on the country. One man! As North Korea had already realized, cyber warfare is the great equalizer.

  Picking up her pace as she jogs through the congested streets, April speculates the FBI and military intelligence would be all over Zamani’s residence, NSA work space, his family, and any known friends, acquaintances, or likely accomplices. But she and Hayley have an inside track on the hacker’s habits: his affinity for motorcycles and the Iron Pony. That avenue of investigation has been thwarted by the electrical outage, at least temporarily. April curses as she runs. Hitting the electrical grid was a smart play on Zamani’s part; no doubt, the authorities on the hacker’s trail are experiencing similar complications amid a widespread blackout.

  Turning right at Seventh Street and within blocks of the Iron Pony, April increases her pace. She recalls marching in the rain as punishment at West Point and being shunned from that day forward by her fellow cadets. With Hayley Chill, she shares an ironclad determination and relentlessness in the face of a fight. If the tavern is dark and shuttered, there are other avenues of investigation to pursue. After the Iron Pony, she will return to Savage Road, despite the director’s ordering her home. Hell, she’ll ride her bicycle to Fort Meade if the traffic is still gridlocked. Her team at Cyber Command needs direction. Now that the authorities have identified Cyber Jihad as an actual contractor for the NSA, the vast catalog of network vulnerabilities that had been at Zamani’s disposal must be shut down. Certainly, Updike and other units of the NSA are working that massive project but can’t be relied upon for completeness. Shutting down exploits to Rafi Zamani means denying those same tools to US intelligence agencies. As she jogs south on the sidewalk, being careful to look out for traffic at the intersection with K Street, April makes a mental note to call the soldiers under her supervision at Cyber Command once she’s done at the Iron Pony.

  On K Street, a lawyer behind the wheel of a 2017 Audi Q7 breaks free of the gridlock west of Seventh Street and guns the engine. With cell phones on the entire Eastern Seaboard rendered useless by the blackout, he has no idea how his wife and kids are faring. He’s frantic to get home in Silver Spring. At the same time, a young mother driving a Honda Fit south on Seventh Street and traumatized from looters banging on her vehicle when it was caught in traffic in Columbia Heights, stands stiff-legged on her accelerator out of pure fear. When the drivers of the two speeding vehicles appear in each other’s field of vision at the intersection of Seventh and K Street, it’s too late to prevent the inevitable collision. Hit broadside by the much larger SUV, the Honda goes airborne and careens into a jogging April Wu, who barely has time to flinch on hearing the tire squeal and crunch of steel.

  8

  THE BOSS

  Friday, 5:15 p.m. Hayley Chill, only slightly winded from her two-mile run from Meridian Hill, enters the White House complex and can’t recall an atmosphere there as bizarre as the one she encounters on this confused and anxious evening. National Guard vehicles jam the driveways, including two IAV Strykers, eight-wheeled armored fighting personnel carriers equipped with either .50-cal M2 machine gun or Mk 19 grenade launcher. Three times as many Secret Service personnel swarm the property as is customary, augmented by M4-toting US Marines from Marine Barracks Washington. Walking past one of the combat vehicles on her way to the West Wing, Hayley questions the need for a grenade launcher on Pennsylvania Avenue but dismisses that idle speculation. Some brass hat with the Maryland Army National Guard felt it necessary to deploy a Protector Remote Weapon Station on the front lawn of the “people’s house,” and given everything on her plate at the moment, that’s good enough for Hayley. She has yet to figure out how she will confront Alberto Barrios.

  Inside the West Wing, cast in semidarkness and stifling warm despite emergency-generated electrical power, she senses a feeling of impending doom. Even the Secret Service agents, usually so calm and contained, betray their anxiety with haunted expressions and frantic movements. Everyone seems to be running, no matter if the journey is only ten feet down the corridor to the office next door. Hayley, having perfected the art of hunkering down, remains poised as she threads her way through the shifting crowd of staffers, aides, military personnel, and government officials coursing through the West Wing. Climbing the stairwell to the main floor, Hayley finds a semi-panicky Kyle Rodgers in his office.

  “Where the fuck have you been?”

  There is no better indication that the country is in serious trouble than Hayley’s boss’s use of profanity. The standard levers of government seem all of a sudden inadequate to the task. Hayley wonders how April is faring at the Iron Pony. Judging by the sights she witnessed on her journey from their meeting at the Meridian Hill to the White House, Hayley wouldn’t be surprised if the ersatz biker bar were a burnt ruin. The city is going to hell in the proverbial handbasket. And Sam McGovern? Emergency services, typically stretched thin in the perennially underfunded city, must be utterly swamped. Hayley can’t imagine what kind of day the fireman might be having and regrets her cold treatment of him when they woke up together.

  “I got caught in the blackout, sir. I’m sorry.”

  Rodgers immediately regrets the obscenity and regains his usual composure. “Same with me, a half hour ago. Absolutely mental out there.”

  “How is the president, sir?” She’s almost afraid to ask.

  “I’m told he hasn’t been seen since leaving the Security Council meeting this morning. Another meeting is planned in an hour. Have no idea if he’ll even show up.” Rodgers broods, staring at his shoes and shaking his head. “I’ve worked with the man for more than two years, seven days a week, and even I don’t understand what’s happened to him. His critics might complain about his friendliness for all things Russian, but this latest crisis seems to have completely undone him.”

  “But after the Russian television stations and Leningrad hospital, how can they still accuse him of having a blind spot?”

  “Yes. POTUS responded, after being presented with strong attribution by the NSA. And now the president seems to have completely fallen apart over it. Like he was hitting his brother or something.”

  Hayley reserves comment. This is all bad news.

  “The cabinet, sir?”

  “In near rebellion, thinking the Twenty-Fifth Amendment is a valid option to get us out of this mess,” Rodgers says, referring to the constitutional provision that allows for the cabinet members to adjudge a president’s fitness for the office and the apparatus with which to remove him from that position.

  “They need to stand behind the president, sir.”

  An involuntary laugh escapes from Rodgers’s mouth. Hayley’s earnestness can surprise him at times. “I’ll tell them you said so. Clare Ryan is fit to be tied, threatening to haul him down from the residence with her bare hands if necessary.”

  The secretary’s distress is understandable. Dealing with the country’s internal turmoil rests on her shoulders. Hayley’s assessment of Clare is that she is an exceedingly capable administrator and cool under pressure, unlike several of the male cabinet officials. Clare Ryan would make an excellent president, Hayley muses. Is that the Homeland Security secretary’s ultimate ambition? When things calm down, it would be interesting to become b
etter acquainted with the woman.

  Rodgers heads for the door. “I’m going up there.”

  The second floor of the executive residence is precisely where she wants to be right now. Is Alberto Barrios working this evening? Who on staff even possesses information regarding residence personnel? Given the present crisis, however, it would be far too abnormal for Hayley to ask to accompany her boss up to the residence.

  “Good luck, sir.”

  He acknowledges her comment with a diffident wave of his hand before disappearing out the door. After Rodgers departs, Hayley retrieves her KryptAll phone. Perhaps April has news.

  * * *

  FRIDAY, 5:20 P.M. Sam McGovern’s Engine 5 is responding to a building fire in the northwest when the report comes over the radio of a vehicular injury accident on Seventh Street. Aware that other engine companies are already on scene at the fire and the car masher is only two blocks from their present location, the crew captain elects to detour to the accident. The fire engine pulls to a stop in the middle of the street where a Honda Fit lies on its roof on the west sidewalk, propped against the wall of a building, and just short of an Audi Q7 with a smashed-up front end. The crash had occurred approximately four minutes before the firemen’s arrival. Given the nature of the three victims’ injuries—one of them, in particular—every second counts.

  As paramedic on the five-person engine crew, Sam quickly assesses the scene. The fire engine and disabled Audi SUV block traffic in either direction. Both drivers have exited their vehicles and sit on the ground. A female pedestrian, however, lies supine on the sidewalk. Sam quickly surmises that she requires the most immediate attention.

  “Request EMS assistance,” he says to his partner, Ankit Dhirasaria.

  Sam checks April Wu for responsiveness.

  Bleeding profusely from a head wound and her eyes closed, April doesn’t respond to Sam’s verbal question, “Ma’am, can you hear me?” Receiving no response, the fireman performs a trap squeeze, gripping and twisting a portion of the trapezius muscle in April’s shoulder. Again she fails to react in any fashion whatsoever.

  “Unresponsive,” Ankit notes.

  The head injury is visible. Sam must quickly assess April for additional, possibly even more life-threatening injuries. Cutting away most of her clothing reveals multiple compound fractures but nothing as severe as the head wound. Sam retrieves a gauze dressing from his paramedic go bag and applies it to the injury, immediately stopping the flow of blood.

  Ankit checks April’s airway. “Going to need to OPA.”

  Sam retrieves an airway adjunct, a plastic medical device used to maintain or open a patient’s airway. After inserting the device into April’s mouth, Sam observes her chest rise for respiratory rate. After a moment’s assessment, he says, “Five and shallow. Going to ventilate.”

  Ankit has the bag valve mask device ready and sets the oxygen tank to fifteen liters per minute. Sam places the BVM over April’s face and begins to ventilate her. He next checks her carotid artery for a pulse. “One forty-eight and rapid.”

  “She’s going into shock.”

  They place a blanket over April, pulling it up to under her chin. “High-priority transport.”

  “Already called in,” says a third fireman in the crew, coming over to help out.

  While Sam holds April’s head steady, Ankit fits a cervical collar around her neck. Then he and the other two firemen lift April’s body to one side and fit a backboard under her and strap her down.

  An EMS truck pulls to a stop behind the fire engine. It is exactly seven minutes and eleven seconds since the Honda Fit nearly crushed the life from April Wu. Two blocks farther south on Seventh Street, the manager of the Iron Pony Tap Room is putting the heavy-duty padlock on the tavern’s front doors. With no end in sight to the current blackout and looting breaking out all over the city, the owner doesn’t pay him enough to suffer the possible consequences of protecting the place from marauders.

  The manager, Aaron Beckett, from England’s Peak District—a Ducati enthusiast and supporter of Manchester United—is probably the only person outside of work that Rafi Zamani can call a friend, sharing mutual enthusiasms in motorbikes and English football. In the next several harrowing hours, the authorities will fail to discover the bikers’ casual association.

  * * *

  FRIDAY, 5:32 P.M. What better way to witness the city’s incapacitation than by motorcycle? Wearing a full-face helmet with mirrored visor, Rafi tours a Washington that has been transformed by the blackout. Every building fire, car accident, and looted supermarket and liquor store is another bucket of endorphins dumped over his cerebral cortex. More than anything, the rogue NSA contractor relishes the idea that with just a few keystrokes on his laptop, he has inconvenienced every bitch whoever refused to fuck him. Astride the Honda, Rafi threads his way through blackout-induced traffic jams with vastly satisfying ease. Fucking beautiful. He owns this town! And the police and FBI investigators on his trail? Like so many blind mice.

  Passing a Chick-fil-A engulfed in flames as he heads north on Fourteenth Street, Rafi reluctantly steers the Honda in the direction of his safe house. The hacker could probably revel for hours more in the destruction he has wrought but must acknowledge that he’s pushing his luck staying out in the open. His safe house is a foul studio apartment in Columbia Heights. More than one or two days hiding out there will be quite enough for his taste. Poor Yazat doesn’t even want to go for a walk in that shithole neighborhood. He’s done his part. Time to get paid and get the fuck out of town.

  * * *

  FRIDAY, 8:31 P.M. The Russian intelligence operatives do little to hide their meeting from prying eyes, given the widespread disruption caused by the blackout. Certainly, the Americans are otherwise busy keeping their society from disintegrating completely. The utility company restores power as night falls, sparing Washington (and hundreds of other municipalities up and down the Eastern Seaboard) the dreaded prospect of a hot, muggy night without electricity. The blackout lasted approximately four hours. Konstantin Tabakov, as senior GRU officer, chose the location for their meeting, in this case, the Washington National Cathedral. Occupying folding chairs just outside the Bethlehem Chapel, where Woodrow Wilson is buried, Tabakov sits with Aleksandr Belyavskiy and Alberto Barrios.

  Besides the three conspirators, who arrived separately, there are no other visitors in the entire sanctuary. Despite the trying times, few of Washington’s distressed citizens have sought the solace of God. The light is dim, the air smelling seductively of myrrh and frankincense. The senior GRU agent speaks first, as is his prerogative.

  In his native Russian, Tabakov asks Barrios, “Your assessment?”

  The White House valet says, in accented Russian that is otherwise fluent, “Sir, my evaluation is that if he hasn’t been compromised already, then Polkan is extremely vulnerable to enemy influence and manipulation.”

  Belyavskiy, the president’s handler, retains a paternalistic affection for his asset. That he believes the darker complexioned Barrios is less qualified to have an opinion by nature of his ethnicity is an attitude the Russian does little to hide.

  “No disrespect to our Cuban friend, but Polkan has been a loyal and diligent servant of Russia since he was barely out of his teens. Whether with infiltration of America’s military or its presidency, this man has funneled thousands upon thousands of classified documents to the GRU and its predecessors. While installed in the Oval Office, Polkan helped mute the customary criticism of Russia by the US government and has given us freer rein in pursuit of our geopolitical agenda in the Balkans, the Mideast, and elsewhere. And, if that wasn’t enough, he has destabilized American domestic politics and its alliances overseas. Let’s not forget all of these important contributions the man has made No less than President Malkin is on the record, congratulating Polkan for his achievements!” says Belyavskiy, referring to Fedor Malkin, the Russian president currently in the twentieth year of his term.

  Tabakov see
ms less than convinced by his Russian colleague’s recitation of Monroe’s accomplishments.

  “That was then. This is now.” He gestures toward Barrios, his fingers stained black by the sunflower seeds he obsessively consumes. “Our Cuban ‘friend’ has observed him with his own eyes. Polkan himself admits he is under suspicion!”

  Uncharacteristically bold, Belyavskiy presses his case. “If the American intelligence agencies can apprehend the cyber terrorists attacking their country, perhaps the search for a mole in the White House will be lessened.”

  Tabakov snarls as he says, “What makes you so sure Moscow isn’t responsible for the cyberattacks on its enemy, Aleksandr Belyavskiy? Perhaps a pretext was needed to rearrange our borders in the Balkans. Who knows?”

  The “journalist” falters as he speaks, “I… I… I simply assumed—”

  Tabakov switches menacingly to English, his accent thick and phlegmatic, and says, “Perhaps Polkan isn’t the only one to have become a dangerous liability.”

  Belyavskiy backpedals furiously. “In truth, I’ve never even met the man, not in person. What do I know of his reliability?”

  Tabakov nods, satisfied to have his way. He shrugs, grimacing, and says, “Если он бьет тебя, он любит тебя.”

  Alberto Barrios looks to Belyavskiy for clarification.

  “An old Russian proverb. ‘If he hits you, it means he loves you.’ ”