Savage Road

by Chris Hauty

  Could the emergency vehicle have covered so much ground—a whole city block—while cross traffic had momentarily stopped the Secret Service SUVs? It doesn’t seem possible. The EMS truck had had no more than a twenty-second head start. The agent in the front passenger seat of the lead SUV gestures toward the hospital up the road.

  “They must be at GWU! Go, go, go!” His partner is already relaying the information over his radio.

  Within the next minute, Secret Service vehicles and DC Police patrol cars behind them screech to a stop at the emergency room entrance. The EMS truck is nowhere in sight. A senior Secret Service agent gets on his phone. But whom, exactly, should he call? Standing outside their vehicles and unsure what to do next, the dozen Secret Service agents experience a collective sickening feeling that they have just lost the president of the United States.

  * * *

  SATURDAY, 8:25 A.M. Clare Ryan only has moments to spare, but the call she must make cannot wait. Blowing through red lights with car horn blaring, her driver races toward the White House complex. The secretary of Homeland Security has heard only the earliest reports of a medical emergency involving the president. Astoundingly, this news is of secondary importance to the radioactive potential of an unhinged Rafi Zamani in her life. The NSA hacker has gone far beyond the operational parameters Clare had explicitly laid out for him. Her strategy seemed sound at the time of conception, the most efficient way possible to expand her mandate at the Department of Homeland Security. The awful truth Clare discovered upon her appointment as head of DHS was that her abilities to accomplish anything meaningful—in terms of cyber defense, as well as other national security needs—were severely limited. Without funding and the full support of the president, a secretary of Homeland Security plays a never-ending game of catch-up. Alarmed by the severity of America’s vulnerability to cyberattack, Clare Ryan was determined to armor civilian defenses by any means necessary.

  Created in 1978 as a joint program of the CIA and NSA with the mission to infiltrate computers around the world, the F6 unit was a piece of intelligence real estate that Clare Ryan had long coveted. Her efforts to integrate the unit’s programs with Homeland Security were thwarted effectively by NSA director Hernandez, with or without an executive order from the president. Clare resorted instead to poaching one of the unit’s best and brightest rising stars. Through his work for the NSA, Rafi Zamani had acquired the skills and a working knowledge of the highly classified exploits needed to mount a sustained and carefully modulated attack on the US. Psychological profiling performed by Clare’s private security agent had highlighted Rafi as disaffected and a loner, making him highly susceptible to recruitment. Jeffrey Williamson made initial contact with the young man. After a negligible amount of courtship, he negotiated a fee for Rafi’s services.

  Clare Ryan had calculated the cyberattacks on the Metro line and compressor station at Stafford would have been sufficient for her purposes of convincing the president—and the public at large—that civilian cyber defenses required immediate attention. She was confident the NSA director, Carlos Hernandez, could be sufficiently contained, avoiding a confrontation with Russia, her scheme’s patsy. But Zamani blew up those well-laid plans. His attacks on the Pentagon servers and, for Christ’s sake, the country’s electrical grid, have scrambled the “action and response” plan beyond Clare’s legendary skills to manage it. Those incidents led to a regrettable attack on Russia and very nearly war. But the secretary of Homeland Security believes her ultimate goal is still within reach. She has kept Hernandez on a leash. The threat of full-scale conflict has abated, replaced by demands by the media and in Congress for expanded protection of civilian targets. From any perspective she analyzes the Rafi Zamani situation, however, Clare concludes that she cannot allow the NSA contractor to live. One life for the lives of many is not a difficult ethical hurdle to clear by her reasoning.

  As the car speeds toward the White House, she picks up her phone. Williamson answers before the first ring.

  “What’s up, Boss?”

  Clare privately thrills when called this and does nothing to discourage it.

  “Not sure. Something crazy at sixteen hundred. Going over there now.”

  “Anything I can do to help?”

  “I’m fine there. It’s the other issue, the one we discussed yesterday.”

  “Yes?”

  “I think it’s time we deal with the problem. Can you see to it?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Soon, Jeffrey.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Today.”

  She disconnects the call and almost simultaneously receives a text from the director of US Secret Service, an agency under the Department of Homeland Security, informing her that Richard Monroe shot himself. Her first thought upon reading this astounding news, once the initial shock has passed, is to wonder if the president’s apparent suicide helps or hurts her chances of increasing her mandate at DHS.

  * * *

  SATURDAY, 1:55 P.M. Hayley is forbidden from leaving the White House complex, even though she has already been interviewed multiple times by investigators from a smorgasbord of government entities. Four hours have passed since the president had fired a bullet into his head. The Secret Service cannot confirm the true extent of his injuries because of the simple fact that they cannot find Richard Monroe. At a few minutes before ten a.m., authorities located the DC Fire Department EMS truck that had transported the president from the White House in the underground parking garage of a GW University building on H Street. Found inside the abandoned emergency vehicle were bloody sheets, discarded EMS uniforms, and two dead US Secret Service agents. Both agents—male and female—were shot in the back of their heads at point-blank range. For the time being, utter confusion holds sway over the West Wing. Indeed, the shock waves are felt throughout the entire federal government and around the world.

  No one knows where the president is or whether he is even alive. As for Hayley, she can’t abide sitting around until someone tells her what to do. Despite Andrew Wilde’s orders for her to “stand down,” Hayley is determined to bring Rafi Zamani to heel. She is sure the rogue NSA contractor, left unchecked, will strike again. To win James Odom’s cooperation, Hayley knows what she must do: take the disgraced CIA deputy director’s revenge on Alberto Barrios. But how long will she be trapped here in the West Wing? All personnel and staff on-site—whether the president’s chief of staff or a gardener—are sequestered until investigators have the opportunity to interview them multiple times. No one is going anywhere anytime soon.

  One question asked repeatedly by investigators: How did the president get his hands on a gun, inside the White House of all places? Hayley came up with the best answer within the first minutes of medical technicians wheeling the president out of the building. Who better to arm Monroe than his valet? If Alberto Barrios is, as James Odom alleges, an operative for the Russian intelligence service, then suspicion must be centered on him. And here, Hayley realizes, her needs dovetail with those of every authority frantically in search of the missing president. The White House valet is almost certainly linked to the president’s disappearance.

  She goes to the door and enters the corridor, looking for the FBI agents who questioned her an hour earlier. Venturing down the hallway in the direction of the Oval Office, Hayley encounters a tall, balding agent. She must take great care in what she says to him or risk blowing her cover. But time is of the essence. Convinced Barrios was involved in Monroe’s disappearance, Hayley can only assume the Cuban will flee the country once released from the White House complex.

  “Sir?”

  “Not now,” the agent says, continuing down the corridor.

  Hayley chases after him. “I thought of someone you need to look at more closely.”

  The FBI agent stops but, with his body language, makes it clear he won’t be stopping for long. “Who?”

  “One of the valets, sir. Alberto Barrios? He should—”

  The agent cuts her off.
“We’ve questioned the domestic staff and cleared them all. Stay put. We’ll circle back to you.” He moves on, leaving Hayley just outside her office door.

  She knows for sure now that Alberto Barrios has left the White House complex. Hayley must get off the property and intercept him. Nothing is more important. Looking out her window, she can see staff members from the residence—housekeepers, kitchen help, ushers—leaving the complex one or two at a time.

  Hayley hears a commotion in the corridor and goes back to the open office door. Stepping in the hallway, she nearly gets knocked over by three FBI agents running past. Investigators congregate outside the Oval Office. She follows the phalanx of law enforcement agents, encountering Kyle Rodgers just outside the Cabinet Room. Disbelief and disorientation slacken his facial features.

  “What’s happening, sir?” she asks her boss.

  “He’s… he’s gone…”

  “President Monroe? He’s dead?”

  Rodgers shakes his head, numb. “The Russians took him. Monroe defected.”

  * * *

  SATURDAY, 7:29 P.M. (GMT) Richard Monroe—born Yuri Sergeev—feels he can relax only as the Gulfstream G650ER makes its approach to Reykjavik, Iceland, for a refueling stop. The operation to exfiltrate him from the White House was a terrifying experience, but he is safe now and blessedly free. When the GRU operative posing as his valet, Alberto Barrios, proposed the escape plan, Monroe agreed on the spot. It was a bold and complex operation, with success contingent on several independent actions. His role was quite simple. Barrios gave him the gun and a bladder filled with blood. Monroe experienced enough warfare in his military career to know what a gunshot can do to a human head. He knew how to properly dress the scene and play the part of a suicide victim. It was absurdly easy, with shock value providing the vital suspension of disbelief.

  The automobile accident that had been staged by GRU agents on Pennsylvania Avenue was the pretext needed for the Russian crew manning the EMS truck to deviate onto H Street. Once the medical technicians in the front seat had left behind the escorting Secret Service vehicles, they executed the two agents riding in back with the president. Less than fifteen seconds after making its detour, the emergency vehicle darted inside a parking garage. Monroe was loaded into a waiting Mercedes with dark tinted windows and driven to the Potomac Airfield, where a Gulfstream GIV was fueled and waiting with jet engines thrumming. Forty-five minutes after “shooting himself in the head,” the president—along with the entire exfiltration team—lifted off from the private aviation airfield in Friendly, Maryland, destined never to set foot in the United States again.

  Only one individual of the sixteen passengers on board has spoken with Monroe since takeoff. Konstantin Tabakov introduced himself after the US president had settled into a seat near the front of the plane and then mostly ignored him. None among the passengers or crew seemed the slightest bit interested in speaking with Russia’s greatest spy operative since Ramón Mercader, Trotsky’s assassin, who spent twenty years in a Mexican prison before returning to a hero’s warm welcome in Moscow. What compelled their unanimous avoidance of him, he could not say. Monroe had hoped to meet Aleksandr Belyavskiy in person finally. He was told his longtime GRU handler was staying behind in the United States, his cover as a working journalist intact. So Monroe spent the hours en route to Iceland in contemplative silence.

  The world must know the truth by now: the US president is a Russian mole. He has discerned from the conversations of his fellow passengers that the decision to trumpet their astonishing success was a difficult one to make. Monroe is surprised the GRU didn’t work out these details in advance of his escape. Then again, the operation came about so suddenly. Who had time to consider the finer points? He is relieved that Moscow determined that his outlandish exfiltration was of greater propaganda value than simply killing him. Despite the mission’s demise, the Kremlin can declare victory with real justification. Given ironclad assurances that Cindy would be allowed to join him in Russia—should she want to, an outcome that Monroe must admit is not guaranteed—he agreed to the exfiltration plan. But should he tell his countrymen about Hayley Chill and her deeper state masters?

  Richard Monroe knows there are only two possible futures for him when they land in Moscow: A long and comfortable retirement on an estate far from the capital, kept almost entirely out of public view except for heavily orchestrated showings by the Kremlin. Alternatively, he will receive a bullet in the back of his head. The ex-president—and surely he must have been succeeded by that nitwit of a vice president by now—fully appreciates the Russian mentality that will forever hold him in suspicion. Having been raised nearly from birth in the United States, Yuri Sergeev’s corruption by the West is a given. His trustworthiness will never be presumed. Betraying the existence of the deeper state and its hold over him is a certain death sentence.

  In these earliest hours of his flight from American justice, Richard Monroe makes the sensible choice. He won’t breathe one word of the deeper state’s existence to his fellow Russians, not for as long as he lives.

  As the ex-president ruminates on these thoughts, Konstantin Tabakov rises from his finely upholstered seat farther aft and heads toward where Monroe sits. The Russian intelligence officer is a dour fellow, and thoroughly representative of the Slavic ethnicity. Monroe finds himself vaguely repulsed by the man. Is he ready to be Russian again? Does he have any choice?

  Tabakov locks his gaze on Monroe and says in their native language, “Home then for you, finally.”

  “Yes! Thank you, Konstantin Tabakov! Back to the warm embrace of Mother Russia!”

  The GRU spymaster laughs, his eyes watery and gray. He knows more of what lies ahead than the fugitive US president.

  “Warm or cold, it’s still a mother’s embrace all the same, Yuri Sergeev.”

  Both men laugh, but Monroe’s chuckle has a slight tremor.

  * * *

  WHILE KYLE RODGERS’S declaration would stun just about anyone else, Hayley Chill is unsurprised by the news. So Moscow successfully exfiltrated their agent rather than kill him. She has to admire the tradecraft. Smuggling a president out of the country from under the noses of his Secret Service protection detail is no mean feat. Richard Monroe’s worsening mental state could only have made the operation that much more challenging. The Russian intelligence services must be in full self-congratulatory mode.

  She stands with her boss in the carpeted corridor outside the Cabinet Room, filled with government officials whose world has been turned upside down.

  “We know about all of this how, sir?” Hayley asks Rodgers.

  “Private jet, approaching Russian airspace.” He fits the pieces together in his mind, the full and terrifying realization forming as he speaks. “No. He didn’t defect! My God, Monroe was a mole!”

  Hayley says nothing, looking past Kyle Rodgers, into the Cabinet Room, where she sees Vincent Landers surrounded by a scrum of government officials, FBI agents, and administration aides. A supreme court judge is being ushered into the room, holding a large, leather-bound Bible. The United States of America is currently without a president. Saner heads have seen fit to swear in a replacement.

  An agitated Secret Service agent suddenly appears in front of Kyle Rodgers and his young chief of staff.

  “You both need to return to your offices… now.”

  The agent’s tone leaves no room for negotiation. Without a word, Rodgers turns and heads back up the corridor. Hayley follows on his heels, with the realization that now is her last chance to escape the building. Given this latest turn of events, the authorities will be questioning West Wing staffers for hours to come. Richard Monroe is gone. Her primary mission went with him. No doubt, from her superiors in the deeper state, Hayley will incur much of the blame for losing him. She will come under even greater scrutiny from regular law enforcement entities. None of that makes any difference right now. She must get out of the West Wing.

  As she passes the doorway leading in
to the Outer Oval Office, Hayley sees that the reception area is deserted. With all of the chaos of the morning, nobody is manning the gate into the nation’s chief executive office. Hayley peels away from Kyle Rodgers and darts inside the reception area. Walking quickly to the partially open door leading into the Oval Office, she sees it is also uninhabited. She enters, going straight to the door that leads into the portico and Rose Garden.

  Hayley pauses to look back over her shoulder. She knows this very well may be the last time she sets foot in this historic, hallowed room. The moment is only a few seconds in duration but feels saturated with memories and significance. That she ever came to this place astonishes her. Having been raised in near poverty, with the barest of college education and a stint in the army, she has come farther in her relatively young life than she ever would have imagined. But there is no time for further reflection. Events hurtle forward. She must hold on for the ride or risk falling by the wayside.

  She pushes the door open and exits. The spring day promises to be a hot one.

  * * *

  WHEN KYLE RODGERS returns to his office, he is surprised not to find Hayley right behind him. He admires his staffer’s bold decision to bug out, correctly guessing she exited through the unoccupied Oval Office. As she also must have intuited, no one is going to be authorized to leave the West Wing anytime soon. Rodgers, as Richard Monroe’s closest advisor, is kept longer than most, finally exiting the building after ten p.m. He will never see his chief of staff again, not since encountering her in the corridor outside the Cabinet Room on the afternoon of the president’s defection. It will be as if Hayley Chill had vanished into thin air. Her abrupt disappearance is only one of many mysteries on that extraordinary day in American history. At the time, Rodgers has much greater concerns. FBI agents not only question him for hours on end but also grill his wife. Small wonder that the investigators don’t similarly interrogate his four-year-old twins. The experience is not a happy one.