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Deep State: A Thriller (Volume 1) (A Hayley Chill Thriller) - Hardcover

Buch 1 von 4: Hayley Chill Thrillers

Hauty, Chris

 
9781982126582: Deep State: A Thriller (Volume 1) (A Hayley Chill Thriller)
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 1982126582 ISBN 13: 9781982126582
Verlag: Atria/Emily Bestler Books, 2020

Inhaltsangabe

THE INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER
Editor’s Choice from The New York Times Book Review
A Los Angeles Times Bestseller
Indie Next Pick for January

“One of the more surprising double-reverse plot twists…in some time.” —The New York Times

“Deep State is a propulsive, page-turning, compelling fragmentation grenade of a debut thriller.” —C.J. Box, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Wolf Pack and The Bitterroots

“The plot...rings eerily true...will keep you turning the pages well into the night.” —Jack Carr, former Navy SEAL and acclaimed author of The Terminal List and True Believer

In this white-knuckled, timely, and whip-smart debut thriller, a deadly plot against the president’s life emerges from the shadows of the Deep State.

Recently elected President Richard Monroe—populist, controversial, and divisive—is at the center of an increasingly polarized Washington, DC. Never has the partisan drama been so tense or the paranoia so rampant. In the midst of contentious political turf wars, the White House chief of staff is found dead in his house. A tenacious intern discovers a single, ominous clue that suggests he died from something other than natural causes, and that a wide-ranging conspiracy is running beneath the surface of everyday events: powerful government figures are scheming to undermine the rule of law—and democracy itself. Allies are exposed as enemies, once-dependable authorities fall under suspicion, and no one seems to be who they say they are. The unthinkable is happening. The Deep State is real. Who will die to keep its secrets and who will kill to uncover the truth?

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Chris Hauty’s debut, Deep State, was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, and Barry Award nominee. Other novels include the CALIBA Award–nominated Savage Road, and Storm Rising, as well as the acclaimed novella Insurrection Day. He currently lives in Glendale, California.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chapter 1: Monroe People 1 Image MONROE PEOPLE
The WMATA Metrobus 38B crosses the Potomac on the Francis Scott Key Bridge, turning east on M Street and traversing a fitfully elegant Georgetown. Heading southeast and transitioning onto Pennsylvania Avenue, the city bus crosses Rock Creek and fully engages the brooding, low-slung metropolis that is the nation’s capital. Hayley Chill, wearing a white blouse and ruffled hem cardigan from Dressbarn with dark straight-leg trousers and functional pumps, has claimed a window seat near the front of the bus. Her straw-colored hair has grown out from Fort Hood days, styled on a budget at Diego’s Hair Salon on Q Street. JanSport bag on her lap, she is barely recognizable as the triumphant and bloodied boxer in the ring or subdued soldier in crisp service uniform mustering out of the army. Whatever the metamorphic process she has undergone in the fifteen months since saying goodbye to Stanley Oakes at the Killeen bus depot, it has transformed Hayley Chill into an accurate facsimile of a DC worker bee.

It is 7:08 a.m. in late November and the weather clings stubbornly to Indian summer. Passing sights they’ve seen hundreds of times before, all other passengers on the bus are engrossed by handheld devices or asleep. But Hayley has ridden the 38B only once before, one week earlier, on a test run after signing the lease on a studio apartment just across the Potomac in Rosslyn, Virginia. Despite having grown up only a six-hour drive from Washington, DC, the city and its monuments are entirely new to her. She gazes out the window, gathering impressions of the passing city with the keen attention of a cultural anthropologist.

As the Metrobus eases to the curb at the southeast corner of Farragut Square, its last stop, Hayley disembarks with a dozen other passengers. The familiarity of another workday is etched on the bored faces of those stepping off the bus. Only Hayley moves with a surplus of energy and a brisk, five-minute walk south on Seventeenth Street brings the President’s Park into view. She pauses on the sidewalk to take in the iconic sight. The White House, partially obscured by fern-leaf beech, American elm, and white oak, impresses her as both splendidly grand and surprisingly modest at the same time. She knows the building’s original architect was Irish-born. She has memorized the names of every senior aide and their phone extensions. Somehow she has even ascertained what flavor ice cream the president is said to prefer. Unsurprisingly, Hayley Chill has arrived for her first day of internship at the White House completely and thoroughly prepared.

A gatehouse opposite the EEOB controls entry into the White House complex, and Hayley joins the long queue there. The majority of staffers waiting in line have green badges on lanyards. Many fewer, including Hayley, possess blue badges. The young officer from the Secret Service Uniformed Division who performs the initial screening accepts her driver’s license and checks it against her badge. He has warm eyes and a folksy grin.

“West Virginia, huh? I grew up in Lewisburg.” His voice possesses the familiar twang of Hayley’s tribe.

She nods. “Lewisburg. Sure. Nice.”

“Blue badge,” the officer remarks with surprised regard. He hands her ID back and gestures behind him, toward the White House complex. “Ready for the viper pit?”

Hayley laughs. “I hope so!”

The policeman waves her through the gate. “You have yourself a pleasant day, Ms. Chill.”

She offers her hand. “Hayley, but you already know that.”

He nods, shaking her hand. “Ned.” Hayley continues forward as the line of people waiting for ID check lengthens behind her.

Once cleared through security screening, she and other arriving personnel are waved through an aggressive, final series of barriers and frowning Secret Service uniformed officers. As instructed by email, Hayley passes through the Eisenhower Executive Office Building and continues outside, onto West Executive Avenue. Nearly all interns receive green badges, designating their access as being limited to more prosaic confines of the Eisenhower building. Hayley’s blue badge allows her to breeze past the Secret Service uniformed officers monitoring access between the EEOB and the White House’s West Wing.

Hayley enters the West Wing through a door on the ground floor. She is older than the typical White House intern by at least five years. Her serious expression is evidence of a life lived without favor or entitlement. Self-delusion is a luxury she could never afford. Even as an eight-year-old sitting on the lap of a Charleston department store Santa reeking of Camel cigarettes and boiled onions, Hayley could tell a fake beard when she saw one. Nor is she unduly overwhelmed here, within these historic walls of the president’s house.

Hayley pauses just inside the entryway to get her bearings, the plastic encasing her blue badge shiny and unscuffed. A passing man, cowboy handsome and wearing a dark suit, perceives Hayley’s plight. “New intern?”

“That obvious, huh?” Hayley’s demeanor is friendly and matter-of-fact. The Secret Service agent knows from experience that most new interns are like kindergartners on their first day of school, breathless and wide-eyed. For that reason alone, this young woman impresses him. He gestures toward her credentials. “They teach us how to decipher those doodads, oddly enough.”

“I feel safer already,” Hayley says, smiling.

“Whose office?”

“Peter Hall.”

“I’ve heard of him,” he responds sarcastically. He indicates a nearby stairwell door, but his hazel eyes remain on Hayley. “One flight up, go right, then right again. First door on your left. Can’t miss it.”

Hayley nods curtly, signaling she’s got it from here. The Secret Service agent is disappointed their encounter is over so quickly but covers with a wink, continuing on his way.

There have always been pretty boys on the periphery of Hayley’s life. Back home in Lincoln County, a roundelay of aggressive suitors vied for kiss, grope, or better from the most desirable girl for miles. Charlie Hadden, All-Conference quarterback and proud possessor of a cherry 1964 Pontiac GTO, hung in long enough to earn the mantle of Hayley’s high school boyfriend but too much Smirnoff and a hairpin curve on Sproul Road ended his tenure, and he died before she could gain what she had at long last decided to take. Hayley wore black for two months, fetchingly so in the opinion of would-be replacements.

Enlistment followed high school graduation by twenty-four hours, a day in which Hayley relinquished her virginity to a twenty-eight-year-old drifter who wrote love songs, had a mutt dog with a face like Bukowski, and played a pretty wicked twelve-string guitar. After that underwhelming initiation to the world of sex, Hayley had chosen to never attach herself to a steady mate. Her priorities were other than romantic love, namely seeing that there was a roof kept over the heads of her younger siblings and food on the table. Nearly every penny of her army pay was sent back home. Pay scales are higher for infantry soldiers, all the inducement Hayley needed toward becoming one of the first eighteen women to earn her blue cord.

Once she’s climbed the stairs to the first floor, Hayley finds herself in a...

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Verlag
Atria/Emily Bestler Books
Erscheinungsdatum
2020
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1982126582
ISBN 13 
9781982126582
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
288
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