The bartender approaches. “Usual, Sam?”
Sam McGovern nods.
Hayley silently curses herself. If she didn’t want human interaction, why come to a bar?
“Put it on my tab, Billy,” she says. Or maybe it’s just because he is so good-looking.
Both Billy and Sam are surprised by the gesture. Without further comment, the bartender draws a tall, chilled mug of Bass Ale for the firefighter, who casts a questioning look in Hayley’s direction.
She fixes her gaze on the Strat but feels his eyes on her. “For the lives you saved today,” says Hayley.
Billy places the beer in front of Sam, who lifts it high.
Sam says, “To the lives we save.”
The bartender retrieves his bottomless mug of heavily iced diet root beer from next to the cash register and clinks it with Sam’s.
* * *
MORE THAN TWO hours later, Hayley stands on the sidewalk with Sam McGovern outside Darlington House. Despite the late hour, a warm breeze wafts over them. The grin on the firefighter’s face is playfully inebriated, a testament to several pints he raised to defuse a stressful day. But it’s not just the alcohol. Sam vibes on Hayley in a way that he hasn’t felt in a long time. The opportunity presents itself. Their initial banter, easy and jocular, begat actual conversation, words that fit together like one thousand puzzle pieces to form a picture of something real.
Hayley gives him a quizzical look. “What the hell are you thinking?”
He only laughs, at himself, in response.
“I’m not going home with you,” she says.
“I don’t remember inviting you.”
“That smile was invitation enough.” Her resolve is especially admirable given the amount of tequila consumed and regrettable history of casual intimacies.
“What’s yours saying?” Sam asks, appreciating her beaming face.
Hayley realizes how rare it is for her to smile and says nothing.
“I want to see you again.”
“I’m a busy girl.”
“That’s not a valid excuse.”
“How do I get in touch with you? Dial 911?”
He laughs. “Sure. Ask for Sam.”
She turns and takes a few steps toward the Prius that has just stopped at the curb, her Uber.
“I had fun,” Hayley says over her shoulder, her right hand reaching for the door handle. “Thanks for cheering me up.”
She climbs into the back of the Prius and pulls the door closed, leaving Sam feeling weirdly bereft. As the vehicle pulls away, however, the rear window rolls down and Hayley’s face appears.
“Hayley Chill. I work at the White House. Last I checked, we’re listed.”
* * *
ARRIVING AT HER apartment on P Street near Logan Circle well after midnight, slightly buzzed from the tequila she consumed, Hayley discovers the door ajar. Sobering instantly, she pushes it open and sees the place is ransacked. She remains on her guard; whoever wrecked the apartment might still be inside. Keeping her back to the wall, Hayley moves quickly to the kitchen area and retrieves the biggest blade in the knife block. Checking each room and closet with the butcher’s knife in hand, the White House staffer establishes she is alone in the apartment.
She picks up one of her dining chairs lying on its side and sets it upright. After retrieving her laptop from her bag, Hayley accesses the server that stores images from the surveillance cameras she placed inside the apartment for precisely this occasion. She has zero concerns that the break-in has compromised her identity as a covert agent for the deeper state. Hayley carries on her person at all times the KryptAll phone issued to her by Andrew Wilde. No other physical evidence exists tying her to Publius. But was the break-in an ordinary case of robbery, or was it counterespionage?
Locating the minicam’s footage online is a trivial matter. Motion-activated, the camera’s recording is time-stamped a few minutes past three that afternoon when Hayley would have been at the White House. With the camera focused on the main living area of the apartment, the single intruder enters the frame from the left. The individual is slim and average height, wearing loose-fitting dark clothing and a balaclava mask that obscures the entire head and face. Gender is impossible to establish. Stopping, the individual scans the entire living room for several seconds. After that lengthy pause, he or she approaches the camera with a purposeful stride. Hayley can now see the expandable steel baton in the individual’s right hand. The intruder draws nearer to the surveillance camera and swings the baton violently forward as the footage abruptly ends.
Hayley looks up from the computer and glances toward the shelf on the opposite wall, where she wedged the matchbox-size minicam between a stack of books. She reverses the recording playback and then freezes frame on the intruder approaching the camera. There is much to suggest the break-in was something more than simple robbery. The tactical balaclava and telescoping steel baton are not the typical kit of the average meth addict, but these objects aren’t absolute proof of a professional operative. Nor is the fact that the front door showed no sign of forced entry. What troubles Hayley most is how the intruder methodically scanned the room and so readily spotted the recording device, as if they knew to look for it.
The break-in indicates the possibility of a severe security breach. Suspicion of her being something more than a White House staffer is the only reason to target Hayley. Before doing anything else, including putting her place back together, the deeper state operative knows what she must do. Reaching for her KryptAll phone, she prepares in her head how best to communicate the news to Andrew Wilde.
* * *
THURSDAY, 5:15 A.M. When she sets out for her run the next morning, the season’s first hint of predawn humidity reminds her of Fort Hood, in Killeen, Texas. Hayley enlisted in the US Army straight out of high school, reveling in the regimentation and directedness of military life. At that time, a career with the army seemed more rewarding than anything available to her back home in Lincoln County, West Virginia. In a single meeting at a Red Lobster fifty miles south of the base, Hayley’s journey shifted, taking a turn that she could never have predicted. Having appeared in her life only the day before, like the professional spook that he was, Andrew Wilde offered the opportunity for patriotic service that far surpassed her role as a corporal in the US Army.
Since she was a child, Hayley’s almost daily runs have been an integral part of her exercise regimen. She eschews high-tech training attire, favoring her old army PT gear instead. Her gait is effortless. Automatic. With physical conditioning at peak levels, breaking a sweat requires a high-energy output. Hayley quickly overtakes a 63 Metrobus devoid of passengers lumbering south on Thirteenth Street. After fifteen minutes at a fast pace, sweat drenches her shirtfront. She eases up with that intensity, feet thinking for her as she turns east on K Street. The capital’s streets are gloriously traffic-free. Within a few minutes of easy jogging and cooling down, Hayley arrives at Franklin Square.
Last renovated in the administration of Franklin Roosevelt and eerily suggestive of that era’s Great Depression, the park seems inhabited by ghosts of unemployed tramps and phantom breadlines. Fifteen minutes until sunrise and not another living soul is in evidence. Hayley enjoys the strangeness of the place, especially at this time of day. She customarily pauses on the west side of the park to stretch, near the commanding statue of John Barry, an officer of the Continental Navy and one of three contenders for “Father of the American Navy.”