by Chris Hauty
He had no inkling the man for whom he had worked so diligently was, in fact, an agent of Russia. Love of country was always one of the prime motivations for Kyle Rodgers’s dedication to public service. Money wasn’t an incentive. Unlike his college pals from UVA pulling down high six figures in the private sector, Rodgers has had to rely on his wife’s salary from a midlevel DC law firm to maintain a decent standard of living. The professional repercussions that will arise from his association with Richard Monroe will leave a bitter taste. His work in the public sector is at an end.
Increasing federal oversight of Big Tech firms creates a lucrative demand for guys with Rodgers’s résumé. Facebook will hire him at a starting salary of more than a million dollars, including signing bonuses. A little brother will join the twins almost nine months to the night of Rodgers’s dismissal from his West Wing interrogation. With a growing family, his wife will quit her law firm and develop a passion for watercolor painting. The Washington Post will profile the couple, a family to be envied and emulated. His life transformed by a president’s faked suicide, Rodgers will enjoy a long career in the private sector before retiring. Seven years later, he will find himself sitting in a comfortable leather chair one muggy Sunday afternoon, a reasonably content old man. Kyle Rodgers will be reading the galleys of a new book on the history of America’s most catastrophic presidency, an administration with which he enjoyed particular intimacy. Failing to find mention of his astonishing chief of staff, Hayley Chill, he will make a mental note to call the author. Five seconds after that thought, a massive stroke will bring a conclusion to a life well lived.
* * *
SATURDAY, 2:46 P.M. Alberto Barrios notices the young woman when he is halfway down the block on G Street, just after leaving the White House complex and crossing Seventeenth Street. The weather is achingly beautiful, but he couldn’t care less. Barrios must get to Union Station in time to catch the 3:25 train for New York. At Penn Station, he expects to be met by a GRU agent and driven to the Port Newark–Elizabeth Marine Terminal. There he will board a Panamanian-registered container ship bound for the Port of Oslo, in Norway. His work, in the United States at least, is finished. Yuri Sergeev is safely aboard a private jet bound for Moscow. America is on the cusp of suffering the kind of national humiliation heretofore unknown in human history. If not for the female operative in pursuit of him, Barrios would be feeling nothing but complete satisfaction with his mission performance.
Seeing the young woman’s reflection in large display windows, he crosses midblock, walking briskly in the direction of the GW Delicatessen on the north side of G Street. Barrios knows the deli well, having patronized the establishment throughout his tenure at the White House residence. He is familiar with the store’s layout. He plans to exit out a rear entrance and take the back alley to Twenty-Second Street. But observing his pursuer pause to make a phone call as he heads inside the deli convinces Barrios that she has alerted compatriots of an American intelligence service. He must make his stand here, in the narrow confines of this dreary grocery.
He has only seconds to decide on the best course of action and where to stage his attack. Barrios briefly considers the possibility of taking a hostage. Armed with only a knife, however, he rejects the plan as having low odds of success. If the female operative has a gun, which is entirely likely, she will shoot him dead without pause. His best hope, then, is in taking refuge in the bathroom at the back of the deli. Perhaps his pursuer will believe he’s fled out the back door, as was his original strategy. The woman’s dogged pursuit infuriates him. Barrios craves ending her life. But a clean getaway, without further conflict, is the absolute best result of his predicament. He has survived this long in the espionage game, in no small part, by possessing an ironclad discipline.
The clerk at the register doesn’t acknowledge his presence as he enters. Barrios continues to the back of the store, checking the three aisles for other customers as he goes. He is alone. The deli counter is currently not staffed. Ducking inside the tiny bathroom, the Cuban considers locking the door behind him. Doing so, he realizes, would accomplish nothing but betray his presence inside. A second door opens to the even smaller room, equipped only with a toilet. He enters that cramped space and pulls the door closed. Then he waits.
Barrios hears nothing until approximately a minute later when the bathroom door squeaks open. Footsteps scuff the floor just on the other side of the toilet room door. After a pause, the door is pulled open, revealing his pursuer. Relieved that the young woman is unarmed, Barrios grips the female operative by the arm and yanks her inside the narrow space. Simultaneously, he thrusts his knife at her throat. She deflects the knife strike. Only then does Barrios realize the young woman has spiked her keys between her fingers. He is shocked by the speed with which she launches her counterattack, repeatedly striking him in the face with her fist. Rending his skin with the keys. The female agent is smaller than him and, by that feature, much more agile in the cramped space. Blinded in one eye and fighting for his life, the Cuban slams the knife handle into the side of the young woman’s head. Stunned, her legs buckle. Barrios kicks her hard in the shin with his steel-tipped boot. He has her. The fight is now tilted decidedly to his advantage. The Cuban flips the knife around in his hand and thrusts the blade at her throat again. But his adversary has collected her wits in those few seconds. She ducks out of the knife’s path.
Barrios struggles to withdraw the knife’s tip from where it is buried deeply in the hollow-core door. The young woman comes at him again with her fists, keys turning his face to a bloody hash. The Cuban attempts to use his superior strength and size to overwhelm his nemesis, but the combination of tight quarters and her ferocity continue to defeat those efforts. Barrios loses a grip on his knife when the young woman drives her right elbow into the side of his head. In a fog of near unconsciousness, the Cuban imagines she has gone and fled. He no longer can see through the flesh and blood that clog his eyes. Alberto Barrios wants to believe his adversary has given up, that she was, like him desperate for relief. Dios mío, no en este lugar. The Cuban doesn’t want to die in this dingy bathroom. He doesn’t want—
* * *
AT ALMOST THE same moment Hayley kills the Cuban GRU agent, Rafi Zamani stands over the corpse of the hit man sent by Clare Ryan. Earlier in the morning, Rafi received instructions to go to Prospect Hill Cemetery at one p.m. Meeting in person seemed unnecessary, of course. Clare possessed all the information she needed to transmit his fee. But the Homeland Security secretary said she couldn’t figure out how to make the “whole cryptocurrency thing” work, insisting they meet so that he could help her with the transfer. Of course, Rafi smelled a setup from the start. Consequently, he was ready for this sorry-ass motherfucker lying on the grass between alabaster headstones. After gutting the nameless hit man, Rafi found a Glock 19 equipped with Osprey suppressor jammed in his waistband. Fuck him.
Rafi heads down the small cemetery knoll to the parking lot and tosses the hit man’s F-150. He finds nothing of significance inside. No money. Nothing.
* * *
CLARE RYAN HASN’T left the Cabinet Room for so much as a bathroom break since arriving hours ago. But her hard work and sacrifice have paid off, in spades. Minutes earlier, the new president signed an executive order dramatically expanding the mandate of the Department of Homeland Security. Clare has succeeded. The journey was long and arduous. But, in the end, those exertions were worth a safer homeland. More than anything, Clare craves to return to her office at DHS and commence the Herculean task of armoring the country’s civilian cyber defenses. Banks, the electrical grid, transportation systems, oil and gas transmission—all of these networks require her attention if they are to be safe from cyberattack. The work will require years of effort and countless millions of dollars to complete. Time to get started.
She feels her phone vibrate while the president addresses the cabinet regarding the sweeping powers he has assigned to the Department of Homeland Security. Clare b
asks in the envious glances of the other cabinet members. But her phone won’t stop buzzing with an incoming call. Finally, she has to look.
Glancing at the phone’s display, she sees the caller’s identity is “Odious,” her nickname for the NSA contractor, Rafi Zamani. Clare feels her stomach grip. Could that psychopath still be alive? She considers the more likely possibility that the hit man contracted by Williamson is using Zamani’s phone to call her. Clare decides to ignore the call. Her momentary panic ebbs. She is okay. All unpleasant and morally questionable acts are behind her. Then a text comes through from the same number.
I’m not dead. Enjoy the consequences, bitch.
The twist in her gut tightens. The room spins. Clare Ryan cannot hear the words being spoken by the new president, only a few hours into his administration. The mantra inside her head changes, the voice in monotone and ominous. No one is safe. No one can ever be safe.
* * *
SATURDAY, 6:21 P.M. Hayley sits with James Odom at a picnic table in the prison’s recreational yard. The former CIA deputy director stares at the photo on her phone of an absolutely dead Alberto Barrios. He seems satisfied.
“Great.”
Hayley says nothing. Waiting.
“Did he suffer? I would like to think so.”
“I stabbed him in the heart, sir.”
He sits back and takes a deep breath, the fresh air filling his lungs. Cumberland’s rec yard may not be scenic, but the sunset sky is magnificent.
“You must have friends in high places,” he says to her, regarding their environs. “Regulations, you know.”
“I have friends.”
Odom nods. He returns the phone to Hayley.
“The score is evened. One of theirs for one of ours.”
“The score is never even. They will calculate it differently than you.” Hayley pauses, and says, “Someone will answer for the Cuban’s death. Maybe you.”
Odom shrugs. “You’re correct, of course. The game goes on.”
Hayley is finished talking about Barrios. She has done as he asked and must be repaid in kind. “The man responsible for the cyberattacks is Rafi Zamani, a contractor at the NSA, sir. General Hernandez’s animosity to Russia is well-known.”
His grin is sly and unnerving. “There you have it then. Case solved.”
“You know I need more than that. I need evidence of Hernandez’s complicity.” Her impatience grows incrementally by the second. “That’s why I left a man lying on a bathroom floor. In a pool of his own blood. You know these people. You’ve operated in this world for decades. Tie it together for me, sir. Give me a document. A dossier. An eyewitness to the conspiracy. I need a smoking gun that will absolutely compel the FBI to arrest the NSA director and stop these attacks.”
The demoralizing smile has not left Odom’s face for the entirety of her speech. It stays there even after she has finished. Suffering its insolence and lacerating judgment, Hayley can feel the surge of emotional upheaval that has undone her throughout her life. The weasel is toying with her, and she can do nothing about it.
He says, “You scarcely believe your own words. How do you expect to convince someone else? I can smell your uncertainty and self-doubt from here.”
She is helpless before him, a sensation foreign to her. “Mr. Odom, sir…”
Something approximating sympathy fills his heart. Barrios’s death represents finality. It signals the true end of his long career as spymaster. “I want to help you, dear girl, despite our history.”
“Then help me, sir. Please.”
“Forget about Hernandez. I’ve known the NSA director for more than three decades. He’d no sooner attack his own country than stroll down Pennsylvania Avenue stark naked with a parasol over his shoulder.”
“Who, then? Is it the Russians after all? Is Zamani another Edward Snowden?”
“Is he?” Odom smiles again. He is toying with her.
“I don’t know! Sir, there’s no time for games, either!”
Odom is unperturbed by her rising temper. “Your instincts have failed you, Hayley Chill. Just because you haven’t a hunch, it doesn’t mean nothing is there.” The prisoner pauses, leaning imperceptibly closer to her. “Even superheroes stumble from time to time, yes?”
Hayley’s anxious expression betrays recognition that Odom speaks some version of the truth. Precious minutes are ticking past. When, where, and how will Rafi Zamani strike next?
“Sir, I need your help. The next cyberattack will take more American lives, perhaps many more.” She pauses, her voice low and emphatic. “I truly believe you love your country. Redemption is possible.”
For several seconds, Odom says nothing. His gaze settles on the concrete-and-steel building that will be his home for the remainder of his life. Oddly, he has finally found peace in this place. Incarceration has been good for him, revealing his more contemplative side.
“Money isn’t so much. We print it on paper. It’s made by selling soap. In Washington, at least, power is the real currency. If you want to find Cyber Jihad, dear girl, ask yourself who has gotten richest off his clandestine labors.”
That is enough for now. Done. Their transaction completed.
James Odom sniffs the air like a hunting dog and grins. “Salisbury steak. You won’t have me missing my dinner now, will you?”
* * *
SATURDAY, 9:22 P.M. Hayley sits at the back table in Clyde’s too distracted to properly appreciate the classic saloon decor. There have been other secretive meetings in this Georgetown bar, from what seems like a lifetime ago. That history, like the venue’s upscale design scheme, fails to register. Hayley can only focus on her confrontation to come with Clare Ryan.
She heard the news of Landers’s executive order on the radio, driving back to DC from Cumberland. With her new responsibilities, the secretary for Homeland Security has become one of the most powerful people in the entire government, second only to the president himself. The DHS budget, currently at $52 billion, is expected to rise to levels north of four hundred billion, more than the Chinese, Russian, and British militaries combined. It is a historic moment in national defense. The United States of America is determined to be the first country on the planet to harden civilian network infrastructures. And Clare Ryan, as cabinet secretary in charge of the Department of Homeland Security, will be at the helm of that massive effort.
Having delivered the murderous Cuban’s head, Hayley’s reward from James Odom was a thinly veiled insinuation. Whether or not the crafty former CIA director knew the truth all along or deduced it with her mention of Rafi Zamani makes no difference. The implication is clear. Only the all-important proof is lacking. If Hayley’s suspicions are correct, then revealing them to Clare Ryan will, at bare minimum, serve the purpose of scaring the DHS secretary straight. Or she may have Hayley quietly killed. Without any other cards to play—or the time for her deeper state superiors to formulate a plan—she is willing to take the risk.
Convincing the cabinet secretary to meet wasn’t an easy task. Clare has a late dinner planned with her fixer, Jeffrey Williamson. With everything that’s already on her plate, only a few minutes allocated to a lowly White House staffer seems excessive. The alliance with Hayley Chill served its purpose; Clare doesn’t need her anymore. But the younger woman was persistent, reaching Clare with her second call and important news regarding Rafi Zamani’s probable client. The cabinet secretary agreed to meet for a quick drink.
Hayley watches the older woman approach from her booth at the rear of the bar. The smile on her face seems brittle and false.
“Do they make days any crazier than this? Thank God, we somehow survived!” Clare says, sitting.
“Ma’am, did you hire Rafi Zamani to attack the US, taking advantage of his expertise and access to NSA cyber weapons?” Hayley decided that hitting hard and fast was the best strategy, hoping to catch the cabinet secretary off guard.
For a few seconds, Clare Ryan remains motionless. Only her eyelids move, lo
wering and rising in a painfully labored blinking action that suggests the short-circuiting of an android’s programming. Then, in a hostile monotone, she says, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Rafi Zamani, ma’am. The cyber hack of the national newspapers. The Metro Blue Line. Stafford compressor station. The DoD servers and electrical grid. Rafi Zamani is Cyber Jihad. You hired him to attack the US to expand your mandate at the Department of Homeland Security.”
“How dare you… ?” Clare draws herself upright, at peak indignation, guffawing at the sheer absurdity of Hayley’s accusation. “You can kiss your job in the West Wing goodbye.”
Clare starts to stand up out of her seat.
“You won’t get away with it, ma’am. Zamani won’t escape. And when he’s caught, who do you think he’s going to throw to the wolves to save his skin?”
These words land with Clare, giving her pause. Everything hinged on erasing the NSA contractor from the face of the Earth. What if the FBI manages to catch Zamani before she can have him eliminated? She was hoping Jeffrey would have some ideas at their dinner. A contingency plan is needed. Now Clare has to worry about the Chill girl and how much she knows? The cabinet secretary begins to get an inkling of what it feels like for those clichéd “walls” to be closing in. The phrase is an apt one. Clare Ryan finds it difficult to breathe.
Hayley says, “Help us catch him, ma’am. Your cooperation now will only benefit your cause after this is over.”
The cabinet secretary doesn’t speak in response for several seconds. Hayley’s plan of attack was sound. Her accusations have temporarily floored Clare. Caught her off guard. How or why the White House staffer discovered the truth could be determined in the future. Hayley Chill’s fate is also in question. If the younger woman cannot be manipulated, then she will need to be silenced, too.
