The Grid (19 page)

- CHAPTER FORTY-THREE -

From the passenger seat of Whitney Holbrook’s Suburban, I watched the countryside blow by.

San Saba was 120 miles west, on the northern plateaus of the Texas Hill Country.

The terrain was mostly flat, with the occasional rocky outcropping. Sun-browned grass covered the pastures, dotted with post oaks and stunted groves of cedar elms. Several low mesas shimmered in the distance, wavy from the heat.

As soon as we left the diner, Whitney Holbrook had turned on the red and blue flashers in the grille of the SUV. She kept the speedometer pegged at a hundred, even on the narrow two-lane highways, and we hit the San Saba town limits eighty minutes after watching Eric Faulkner leave the diner.

The Suburban’s GPS routed us down Main Street past the town square.

The central business district was full of old stone buildings, some occupied by lawyers’ offices and antique shops, others vacant.

The Sudamento plant was on the west side of the county, about three miles past the town. According to the grid map, a substation was located about a half mile beyond the plant. Six different generating facilities fed their electricity into that substation, nearly 7,200 megawatts, or enough juice for 3.6 million homes.

The entrance to the facility lay at the end of a gravel road. The earth on either side of the road had been carved into shallow canyons thousands of yards long, the result of the strip-mining operation that provided coal for the boilers.

The gate was open, but Whitney stopped at the guardhouse anyway, a one-room wooden structure with large windows on all four sides.

No one appeared to be in the guardhouse.

She tapped the horn.

No response.

She glanced at me, a worried expression on her face.

“Wait here.” I opened the door, got out.

The air was hot and still. In the distance, a buzzard glided over a pasture.

I walked around the front of the Suburban.

The entrance to the guardhouse was ajar, cold air spilling out.

I pulled my Glock from its holster, eased toward the opening, stepped inside.

The smell hit me first, then the noise.

A whiff of copper followed by the buzz of flies.

Two bodies lay on the floor, shoved under the front counter to keep them as out of sight as possible.

They were wearing Sudamento security uniforms. Each had massive trauma to the chest area, such as might be caused by a large-caliber rifle.

I scanned the rest of the shack. Yanked open the bathroom door, saw it was empty.

When I turned around, Whitney was standing in the doorway, gun in hand.

“Call it in,” I said.

She didn’t move, just stared at the bodies.

“Go.”
I pointed to the Suburban.

In the distance, a
whoomph
sound.

We both craned our necks, looking in every direction for the source of the noise.

A few seconds later, the lights in the guardhouse flickered and then went out.

“Shit.” Whitney dashed to the Suburban.

I followed her, jumped into the passenger side, fastened my seat belt.

The map we’d looked at the day before showed the lake house on the far western edge of the site, about halfway between the boilers and the substation.

Whitney grabbed her phone, called what sounded like one of her colleagues, asking for an airlift of agents to the San Saba plant.

I dialed 911. A sleepy-sounding woman answered.

I told her my name, identified myself as a federal agent, and said there was an attack underway at the power plant outside of town. I told her to contact the sheriff ASAP and implement whatever protocols they had in place for a terrorist event.

Another explosion sounded. This one was softer, farther away.

Before the 911 operator could answer, the line went dead.

Whitney and I looked at each other. She said, “Did your phone just die?”

“They blew the communication lines,” I said. “Just like McCarty Creek.”

In the distance, the exhaust towers of the plant continued to bellow steam, everything appearing to be normal.

I pointed to the west. “The lake house is that way. Take the road to the boilers and then turn right.”

“We should wait for backup.”

“There’s no backup coming, Whitney, not for a long time anyway.”

Her face was pale, teeth chattering. “W-w-what should we do? I-I’ve never worked without b-backup before.”

“We’re gonna find the bad guys,” I said. “That’s our job.”

A jolt of adrenaline ran through my system. You didn’t get many chances like this, the opportunity to investigate a crime scene as it unfolded. She took several deep breaths.

“We’ll back each other up.” I spoke in a soothing tone. “It’ll be fine. I’ve been in this situation before.”

She nodded. Put the SUV into drive.

The color was starting to return to her face.

“You should know I’ve never shot my gun anywhere but the range.” She stepped on the accelerator. The SUV headed toward the heart of the plant.

“Keep your finger off the trigger,” I said. “Until you’re ready to fi—”

We were about five hundred yards away when the boilers exploded, all twelve stories.

A supernova of light filled the sky, followed by what sounded like the inside of a sonic boom.

- CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR -

Dust swirled. My ears rang.

I blinked, regained my vision.

Clouds of black smoke in the distance.

From high above us, the heavens opened up and the debris from the towers rained down. An onslaught of metal and pipes and wires, thumping the ground, pinging the metal of our SUV.

I looked to either side.

The Suburban had run off the road. We were in a shallow ditch a few dozen yards past the guardhouse.

Next to me, Whitney was slumped over the steering wheel, not moving. She hadn’t been wearing her seat belt.

“Whitney?”

No answer.

I grabbed her shoulder, eased her back. She had a nasty bruise on her forehead but was breathing, her airway unobstructed.

I placed a finger on her neck, felt the pulse. It was strong and rapid.

“W-what happened?” Her voice was hoarse.

“There was an explosion,” I said. “You remember where we are?”

It was even money as to whether she had a concussion or not.

Either way, no ambulance would be on its way for a long time. There were no hospitals in San Saba, and we were too far away from population centers for any type of rapid response.

“The power plant.” She opened her eyes. “It’s gone.”

“Let’s switch places,” I said. “I’ll drive.”

She touched her head and nodded. As gently as possible, I pulled her into my lap. Then I slid over to her spot behind the wheel.

Once she was in the passenger seat, she opened the console and pulled out a large device that looked like a cellular phone from the 1980s.

“S-satellite phone.” She dialed a number. “I have to c-call this in.”

She had enough manual dexterity to dial—a good sign—but her speech slurred.

I engaged the four-wheel drive and jammed on the gas.

All four tires spun. Dirt spewed everywhere.

After a couple of seconds, we shot out of the ditch and headed across open ground, moving at a right angle to where the towers used to be.

The terrain was flat but bumpy, covered in low brush that scraped the sides of the Suburban as we went.

Whitney told whoever was on the other end of the sat phone what had happened. She managed to rattle off a bunch of code words and acronyms, government-speak for a terrorist attack, all hands on deck. Her voice was strong, but she sounded tipsy.

She glanced at me, phone still against her ear. “Where are we going?”

In the distance, the power plant lake shimmered like a sea of diamonds.

“The blast scene,” Whitney said, looking behind us. “We need to see about survivors.”

I kept driving.

“Please, Jon.” She touched my arm. “We have to help with the wounded.”

“There aren’t going to be any survivors from a blast like that.” I maneuvered around a stock tank. “Anybody who’s still alive needs to be found first, which means bulldozers and search dogs.”

She didn’t say anything. Just stared at me with wide eyes, like she was trying to process the words.

“Then they’ll need to be transported to the nearest trauma center, which is, oh, maybe two hundred miles away.”

She looked at the phone.

“We’re going to the lake house,” I said.

She stared at me blankly. One eyelid drooped.

“They’re still here, Whitney.”

“How do you know?” she said.

“Because people who do things like this usually stick around to watch.”

She didn’t reply. Instead she put the phone on the floor and buckled her seat belt.

I pressed down on the accelerator. The Suburban bumped and jumped across the uneven ground. I drove through a stand of mesquite trees, and about ninety seconds later, the SUV burst through a barbwire fence at the rear of the lake house.

The home was low and squat, like someone had mashed a two-story house into a single floor. Beige brick siding, a large back patio next to the attached garage.

Whitney gasped.

Parked in the driveway by the garage: a gray Chevy pickup. The same type of vehicle the farmer by Black Valley had mentioned seeing.

I stopped by an old live oak about fifty yards from the house.

Whitney grabbed her pistol.

“No.” I shook my head. “You stay here.”

“I can handle myself.”

“You’ve got a concussion.” I opened my door. “Your attic’s a little dusty. Call the cavalry on the sat phone. Tell them we’ve spotted the suspect’s vehicle.”

She looked at the gun in her hand. Her mouth was open.

I pulled the weapon from her fingers, put it on the dash. “Then lie down and be still.”

She touched the bruise on her forehead, which had grown into a nice-sized goose egg.

I got out. Jogged to the rear of the Suburban.

There, I found a locker with four MP-5 submachine guns and a couple dozen clips full of ammunition. Hanging from a rod across the rear were eight or ten pieces of clothing. Half were bulletproof vests, the rest blue Windbreakers marked
F
EDERAL
A
GENT
on the back.

I found a vest and a Windbreaker in my size and put both on, ignoring the heat. Then I loaded one of the subguns with a thirty-round magazine and stuck a spare clip in my back pocket.

Whitney appeared next to me, wobbly.

I put a hand on her elbow, led her back to the passenger side, got her seated.

“Stay here,” I said. “Wait for the troops.”

She stared at me, a blank expression on her face.

“Please.” I touched her hand. “This is where you’ll be safe.”

She nodded once, and I jogged toward the lake house as the remains of the power plant burned behind me.

- CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE -

Sarah parks her Mercedes in the handicap space in front of a restaurant in Preston Center, one of the city’s swankier North Dallas neighborhoods.

It’s a little before noon, and there are a lot of empty spaces, but Sarah’s give-a-shit meter is broken, so she picks the closest spot.

Malcolm’s is a white-tablecloth kind of place named after the owner, a Louisiana expat who died the year before when the gas tank of his Escalade “malfunctioned” and exploded.

A black awning covers the front door of the restaurant, sheltering the red carpet that leads to the curb. A jewelry store and a plastic surgeon’s office are on either side.

Several hours before, Sarah had told the Texas Ranger that she doesn’t own any guns and finally managed to shut the door of the apartment. She’d showered and then picked out her clothes with care, a black linen sundress and a strand of pearls her husband gave her for their fifth anniversary. Her Hermès purse, the Ruger stuffed inside, is on her shoulder. On her other shoulder is a small duffel bag made from vinyl, the kind you might take to the gym.

Two types of people frequent Malcolm’s. Men in the real estate business, Rolex-wearing deal junkies. And gamblers. Sarah has an appointment with one of the latter, an attorney named Stodghill.

The inside of the restaurant is decorated with oil paintings of nude women reclining on chaise lounges and English gentlemen on horseback hunting foxes.

This early, only about half the tables are occupied. Ninety percent of the patrons are males, a hundred percent of whom are drinking.

Sarah approaches the hostess station, where the maître d’ is standing.

“I need to go to the back room,” Sarah says.

The maître d’ makes a big show of consulting his reservations book.

“You know who I am,” Sarah says. “Quit acting like you don’t.”

The man snaps his finger, and a waiter in a tuxedo instantly appears. The waiter escorts Sarah to a heavy wooden door on the other side of the dining room.

The waiter opens the door with a flourish, and Sarah steps into a separate room that doesn’t resemble a white-tablecloth restaurant so much as it does a sports bar.

Ten flat-screen TVs on the far wall, each tuned to a different sporting event. Tables are all arranged so that the seats face the televisions. There’s a bar on one wall with a bartender and two heavyset guys in tracksuits scribbling notes on clipboards, talking on cell phones. The tracksuit guys aren’t taking drink orders; they’re handling bets.

All the tables are empty except for the one in the middle, the best spot in the house.

Two people are sitting there. Stodghill, a man in his forties wearing a starched white button-down shirt, pressed Levi jeans, and black lizard-skin boots. Next to him is a girl in her early twenties dressed like a stripper—skintight red minidress and matching platform shoes.

Stodghill is eating raw oysters and drinking beer, watching a soccer game.

Sarah sits down uninvited on the right side of the attorney. The girl is on his left.

Stodghill looks over at the new arrival, one eyebrow raised.

Sarah is no stranger to lawyers. She’s dealt with dozens of them, the big firms in the skyscrapers downtown, people in $5,000 suits who handle her trust funds.

Those people all play by the rules, which is not something she needs at the moment.

Stodghill is a defense attorney who maintained a small office between a dry cleaner and a discount cigarette store. His last big case ended with his client, a crooked city councilman, going free after a mistrial. One of the jurors, an elderly Baptist deacon with no criminal record, was discovered to have ten pounds of marijuana in the trunk of his Toyota Camry.

“I thought we’d be meeting alone,” Sarah says.

“This is Darcie,” Stodghill says. “She’s my fiancée.”

Sarah leans across the table. “Hey, Darcie. You’ve got blow on your face.”

The girl, who up close appears to be in her late teens, has some white powder on her nostrils and upper lip. She instantly covers her nose with one hand.

Stodghill shakes his head.

“Where’d you two meet?” Sarah says. “A hooker rodeo?”

Stodghill speaks to the girl. “Go clean yourself up.”

Darcie gets to her feet and wobbles on her platform shoes toward the restrooms.

“Is she even old enough to drive?” Sarah asks.

“Her Oklahoma ID says she’s eighteen.” Stodghill drains his beer. “You want to keep busting my ass about my private life, or tell me why you had to see me so fast?”

Sarah puts the duffel bag on the table. “There’s three hundred thousand in there. Half of it is to pay for my fee. The rest is a retainer for a new client you’re about to start representing.”

Stodghill stares at the bag for a moment before he places it under his seat.

“Dallas is getting a little hot for me.” Sarah stares at the wall of TVs, trying to figure out where to begin.

“How hot are we talking about? You about to be arrested?”

Sarah shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

Stodghill signals the waiter. He orders a pot of coffee. When the waiter leaves, he says, “Start at the beginning.”