“Yes, sir. Honored to serve in any capacity.”
Hall fancies himself an ear for regional accents, not without justification. “Kanawha County, West Virginia?”
Hayley grins. “Pretty close, sir. Green Shoals, Lincoln County.”
Watching Hayley interact with the chief of staff, Becca knows she has lost a major battle here, though the war is far from over. Sophia and Luke’s game is strictly two-dimensional, and they don’t even realize the contest is over for them. Becca now understands that this was a two-man race from day one of Hayley’s arrival. Underscoring that point, Hall’s focus remains exclusively on the West Virginian.
“Your father, he made the ultimate sacrifice?”
“Yes, sir. Bravo Company from Marine Corps Reserve’s First Battalion, Twenty-Third Regiment. Second Battle of Fallujah. Killed in action at Blackwater Bridge, sir, when I was eight. My mom raised us six kids slingin’ grits and black coffee at a Shoney’s in Charleston, up until she got sick herself.”
Hall nods, sagely, recognizing the backstory. “Monroe people,” he assesses approvingly.
“Yes, sir. The president is very popular back home.”
Without a glance toward the other three interns, Hall crooks his finger and tilts his head toward the door. “Let’s go. Not enough hours in the day to save a country.”
Hayley stands and follows Hall out the door, leaving Becca, Sophia, and Luke to exchange looks of stunned misery.
Hall leads Hayley up the stairwell and down the corridor to his office suite. The reception area is empty except for his primary assistant seated at her desk, running traffic control on the office phones. “No calls or interruptions for fifteen minutes,” Hall barks at his assistant as he strides past. Hayley follows him into his office.
She gestures behind her. “Door closed, sir?”
“Leave it.” Hall picks up a sheaf of papers from his desk and thrusts the papers at Hayley, indicating a chair opposite his desk. “Sit.”
Hayley takes the pages and briefly scans them.
“The president’s speech in Ohio Saturday on national security,” Hall informs her, sitting on the corner of his desk with arms folded across his chest. Through the window behind his desk, the Washington Monument looms. “Read. I want to hear it.”
Hayley glances down at the pages for no more than five seconds, then looks back up to Hall.
“ ‘This is a time, my fellow Americans, when we must reach within ourselves and discover the essential strength of our convictions. We must recall the lessons taught to us by our elders, ones that spoke to ideals that once made this great country—’ ”
Hall raises a hand, stopping her recitation. “Bullshit.”
“Sir?”
Hall gestures for the speech transcript impatiently. Hayley hands the pages back to the chief of staff.
Hall asks, “Photographic memory part of army training now?”
“Fortunately, sir, my recall has always been pretty good.”
As a child, Hayley did not begin to speak until the age of two but then spoke in complete sentences and was reading by the age of four. It was her second-grade teacher who first discerned Hayley’s photographic memory. On a field trip to the local park, Hayley had flawlessly recited the birthdays of every student in class by recalling the dates written on a homeroom poster. As it developed, Hayley realized her eidetic memory wasn’t limited to visual aspects of memory but also included auditory memory and other sensory stimuli associated with a visual image. Sensitive to the freakish nature of this gift, she downplays its significance to the point of obscuring it unless exposure is absolutely necessary.
“Fantastic. How good are you at forgetting it?” Hall unceremoniously dumps the pages into the garbage can. “Speechwriters we hired couldn’t write a thank-you note without a fucking thesaurus. I’ll write the damn thing myself.”
“A field general is only as good as his EO, sir.”
Hall nods in agreement, his impression of this army veteran from West Virginia only getting better by the minute. With four grown sons, he has always lamented having no daughters. In the car later that evening, after a long day, Hall will recall these few minutes with Hayley and consider fixing up his youngest son with her. After Hall’s wife, Carol, died from cancer three years ago, Paul has been the most attentive in helping his dad through the dark, lonely times. Next time his youngest is down from New York, Hall makes a mental note to invite the new intern over to the house on Kalorama Road for brunch.
“No one expected him to go all the way. No one even saw Richard Monroe coming. Ninety-nine percent of Washington figured him for just another war hero with a book deal at Simon and Schuster,” Hall informs her. “I saw a chance for national redemption.”
“It was a good book, sir. Read it twice,” she relates.
“And its author actually wrote it! Words like hand grenades and napalm for ideas. How else to win a political war for the ages? Obliterate the status quo and take no prisoners.”
“Yes, sir, but as Bismarck said, politics is the art of the possible.”
Hall scoffs. “The art of the next best? Nice try, Ms. Chill, and kudos for being better read than all of your Ivy League colleagues combined. But don’t underestimate the forces mobilized against us.” He pauses for dramatic effect, hinging at the waist as he leans his face toward hers. “They want us dead!”
“Sir … ?” Hayley protests.
Hall cuts her off with an index figure pointed to the ceiling. “The president or me. Dead! And don’t be surprised when it happens. They’ll do anything to stop us. Trust no one.”
“Who is ‘they,’ sir?”
“The people who actually control this town, the shadow government, or ‘deep state.’ Call it what you will, they are a hybrid association of elements of government joined with parts of top-level finance and industry that effectively governs the United States, and without consent of the electorate. They’re afraid of what Richard Monroe might do to the precious power they’ve accrued over decades of entrenchment. These elements are mortally afraid of an end to a status quo of their creation and will preserve what they believe is rightfully theirs through any means necessary.”
Hayley remains quiet, Hall’s words hanging in the air.
“We, as a country, think we’re so different, that we’re better than all of that. But we’re not better. We’re not all that different from anyone else. This country was founded in blood. Blood is our heritage, just like every other country on the planet.” The chief of staff gives Hayley a sidelong look, a wry grin on his face. “But I’m not telling you anything, am I, Ms. Chill? You’ve seen something of the real world, unlike your fellow interns.”
Hayley’s face remains impassive. “Yes, sir.”
Hall nods, satisfied with this meeting of like minds, however disparate their professional positions. He casually gestures toward the door, as if the dire threat he had just mentioned was simply part of the job. “Don’t have much time to bang this out. Appreciate your time.”
“That’s all, sir?”
“For now.” Hall seems to consider saying more but decides against it.
Hayley dutifully rises to her feet and strides toward the door.