Fully expecting the secure room to be locked up tight, Hayley puts hand to doorknob and, to her amazement, is able to turn it. Looking up and down the empty corridor, she pushes the door open and steps inside, finding herself in a relatively small room, walls covered with signal-blocking Faraday. The Bearded Man, a Northrop Grumman SCS-100 integrated briefcase communication system opened before him on a desk, is startled to have a visitor. He glares at Hayley with irritation.
“Yes?” the Bearded Man demands with a tone of voice that would make most men cower in response.
Hayley doesn’t express anything but sincere apology, masking her disappointment. “I’m sorry to disturb you, sir. Wrong door.”
Wondering who the visitor might be, Hayley backpedals out the door, closing it firmly behind her, and heads back up the corridor toward the CoS Support office. The man seemed more like college professor than DC insider. Whoever he is, he must have top security clearance to have free rein of the RTINTBM. Pressing forward with plan B, Hayley guesses correctly the former janitorial closet will be empty. Soon as she has pushed the door closed, she checks her Blackphone for Wi-Fi or cellular signal. There is nothing. The phone is a plastic brick.
Hayley places Scott’s tablet on her old desk and sits. Closing her eyes, she recalls the morning a few days earlier in the Secret Service agent’s kitchen and, from an upside-down perspective “sees” Scott tap a four-digit PIN on the tablet’s screen, gaining access. Grateful for her eidetic memory, Hayley opens her eyes again and types the pass code into the computer. Access is granted. The interface displays Scott’s tablet homepage, containing the usual jumble of folder icons and files.
“Shit!” Hayley exclaims, analyzing the tablet screen. The cellular icon in the top right corner of the desktop suggests the faintest of connections.
Working quickly, Hayley taps the settings icon and shuts off Wi-Fi and cellular connections on the device. She doesn’t delude herself. If the bad guys were anticipating their fellow conspirator’s device to be activated, they’ve made its location within only a few moments of triggering. The damage is done.
Hayley returns to the tablet’s desktop screen and begins searching folders, quickly closing one and opening the next after quick review. She finds nothing of particular interest. Stored on the Secret Service agent’s device is the exact sort of data one would expect to find. For a moment, Hayley is stumped. She stops searching and broods on it.
On a hunch, she goes to the tablet’s display settings and deactivates the Reduce Transparency option. Returning to the desktop, Hayley sees that a previously hidden folder titled DAMOCLES has appeared there. She clicks on the folder, revealing dozens of files with random, alphanumeric names. Hayley hovers the cursor over one file, chosen unsystematically, and clicks it open. The file contains a log of Peter Hall’s personal schedule for the week past, down to the minute, with specificity that could have only been created through intense surveillance.
Hayley closes the Hall file and randomly selects another file. It contains a detailed blueprint of Hall’s residence on Kalorama Road. She closes that file and chooses another, revealing the doctor’s report of the president’s latest physical examination, a document that isn’t supposed to be seen by anyone but Monroe or his wife.
Hayley pauses to reflect on the confirmation of her suspicions. Without a doubt, the president’s life is at risk. She guesses the plan is for Monroe to suffer a “heart attack” similar to Hall’s. Timing for the potential attack remains a complete unknown, however. Hayley’s reverie is interrupted when the door is abruptly pushed open, revealing an unhappy Karen Rey on the other side. Hayley closes out the Monroe file without taking her eyes off the White House aide standing in the doorway.
“Ma’am?” Hayley asks innocently, aware she has no valid excuse for hiding in the CoS Support office.
“I’ve been looking all over for you!” Rey exclaims.
“Ms. Rey, I’m—”
But her supervisor cuts her off with a hand gesture. “No time for that. Follow me,” she orders Hayley, disappearing from the open doorway.
Hayley powers down the tablet and sees on its dark display a profusion of her fingerprints. Alarmed, she swipes the tablet glass with her shirtsleeve and hurries to catch up with Rey in the corridor, halfway to the stairwell.
“Oval Office briefing in three minutes. POTUS asked specifically that you be on hand to support,” Rey explains as she walks. “Don’t ask me why,” she adds with a cutting look back at Hayley.
* * *
THE BEARDED MAN closes the briefcase communications unit. He’s due in the Oval Office in seven and a half minutes. As CIA deputy director, Office of Intelligence Integration, one of James Odom’s responsibilities is daily communication with the National Counterterrorism Center, back at McLean. Without a clear directive from the White House regarding ongoing election meddling by the Russians, among other active campaigns of international espionage, Odom has made it his personal mission to direct the NCTC to conduct clandestine countermeasures against Moscow. Several levels of the US intelligence community, above and below, support his efforts. Were they to become public or made known to the administration, Odom would be fired. With the CIA’s powers under assault by a hostile executive branch, he doesn’t see that termination as much worse a fate.
Odom exits the West Wing ground-floor-level secure room and hurries toward the stairwell. The Russians’ cyberattack on Estonia demands immediate response from the West, and the CIA deputy director is determined to convince the president to lead that action, despite Monroe’s bewildering hard-on for Russia. Charging up the stairs to the first floor, Odom reminds himself to maintain respect when speaking with Monroe. It will be no small task. Though the president’s military record is to be commended, the man is completely ill-suited for the office he holds. His election is the strongest evidence for the ultimate failure of democracy and certainly puts the future of the United States as perennial superpower in doubt. As he strides into the Outer Oval Office and is greeted by the president’s personal secretary, Odom can only worry about his children and grandchildren. Who knows what the United States of America will look like in twenty-five years?
The CIA deputy director is ushered into the Oval Office, where he finds one of the West Wing’s dozens of aides as well as the young woman who had barged into the secure room downstairs, an intern, judging by her young age. The more senior aide fusses after him in the manner to which Odom is accustomed, far too obsequious for his taste.
The intern, in contrast, displays a cool nonchalance in his presence. As evidenced by their earlier, accidental meeting, the young woman does not fluster easily. Odom is impressed with the intern’s poise. He knows from experience such a character trait cannot be learned. The CIA deputy director makes a mental note to follow up with inquiries regarding the young woman, after the current crisis has been resolved. The agency is always on the lookout for potential recruits, and this intern with the pleasant southern twang just might make an ideal candidate. Who knows? Maybe she could be a deputy director one day.
* * *
AS HAYLEY FOLLOWS Rey up the stairwell, to the West Wing’s first floor, she processes the evidence she has gleaned from Scott’s tablet, fighting against the panic welling up within her. Everything she has experienced in life has conditioned her to control fear and compartmentalize it. Properly handled, fear can serve primarily as motivation, fuel for the fire necessary to act. To be brave.