The Grid (4 page)

- CHAPTER SEVEN -

I stepped into the coffee shop located a few hundred yards north of the motel. It was a dismal place attached to one end of a truck stop. On the other end was a strip club.

The investigators with the Texas Rangers had arrived at the motel a few minutes before, and I was mostly getting in their way, so I decided to accept Price Anderson’s request to meet. He’d indicated it was urgent.

Unlike the diner where I’d had breakfast with Jerry an hour or so ago, this establishment was windowless and dirty, dimly lit by wagon-wheel chandeliers draped with cobwebs. The worn linoleum floor felt sticky, and the Naugahyde booths were patched with duct tape.

At the hostess station was a waitress in her sixties with a Farrah Fawcett hairdo dyed the color of tar. She stood about five foot nine but looked like she weighed only a hundred pounds. A cigarette dangled from her lips.

“Can I help you?” Her voice was raspy, like she’d been gargling fiberglass.

The place was about half full. Truck drivers and day laborers. Drifters. By the salad bar were several bikers who looked like they hadn’t slept or bathed since Bush had been president. Everyone was smoking.

“What’s the special today?” I asked. “Chicken-fried meth?”

“The old sheriff useta come in here all the time,” she said. “Only he weren’t no asshole.”

“He’s dead. Now you have to deal with me.”

She shrugged.

“I’m meeting somebody,” I said. “Last time I saw him, he had all his teeth. That ring a bell?”

With her cigarette, she pointed to the back. “Try our nonsmoking area.”

The tiny room was on the other side of the kitchen. The walls were decorated with pictures of World War II bombers and Lyndon Johnson.

Price Anderson was the only person in that section. He was also the only person in the entire restaurant wearing a decent set of clothes—a dove-gray suit and a lavender dress shirt with French cuffs.

I slid into the opposite side of the booth. We shook hands.

“How long’s it been?” he said. “Fifteen years?”

Despite the fact that he’d saved my life, Price and I were not friends.

Call it a clash of personalities. Price was a narcissist, always preening in front of a mirror, his combat fatigues altered to accentuate his broad shoulders and tapered waist. Price was the kind of person who applied hair gel before going on patrol.

“More like twenty,” I said. “We were on leave in Manila. You stiffed that hooker. Asked me to watch out for her pimp.”

“Oh yeah.” He chuckled. “Boy, was she pissed.”

“What I told you on the phone, Price: I can give you about ten minutes. Things are a little busy right now.”

“The homicide, right?”

I didn’t reply.

Price was showing off, telling me he was plugged in enough to know about a murder where the victim was still warm. I’d already surmised that, since he knew to reach me at the scene of the crime.

“Last I heard,” he said, “you were a DEA contractor.”

This little tidbit was not a secret. Not by a long shot.

“That’s been a while,” I said.

“You settled down, right? Somebody told me you were married and had a kid.”

Silence.

I lived alone now, and not by my choice. I saw no reason to discuss my domestic situation with a supposed old friend who’d dropped in out of nowhere.

“Me, I was in-country until a couple of years ago. Working for a division of Halliburton. We were revamping the electrical grid in Baghdad.”

I remembered the two power failures in the past ninety minutes. A large section of Central Texas without electricity.

“Who you working for now?” I asked.

“Ever hear of a company called Sudamento?”

I nodded.

The company was a huge operation, one of the largest employers in the region.

“Sudamento owns a third of the electrical plants in the state,” Price said.

“And here you are. Right after the power goes out.”

“I’m head of security.” He slid a card across the table.

The waitress brought me a cup of coffee, even though I hadn’t asked for one. She refilled Price’s cup.

His business card was made from ultrathick cardstock the color of buttermilk. The lettering was navy blue. Expensive, as befitting the corporate address, which was a skyscraper in downtown Dallas.

“What do you know about the electrical grid?” He stirred sugar into his coffee.

“Not much. And I’d like to keep it that way.”

He took a sip and stared at the waitress, who was across the room, filling saltshakers.

“I bet she’s free tonight,” I said. “Why don’t you ask her out?”

In addition to being a vain, self-centered egotist, Price Anderson was also a man-slut. He’d screw the crack of dawn, given half a chance.

“The power outage today was not an accident,” he said.

I didn’t reply. Electrical demand surged during the summer. Temporary brownouts, euphemistically called “rolling blackouts,” were not uncommon. That’s what I’d figured today’s occurrence had been.

“Why are you telling me all this?” I looked at my watch.

A task that I dreaded still awaited me: notifying the deputy’s widow.

“We’re being attacked, Cantrell. Sudamento’s ability to generate electricity is threatened.”

“Who’s doing the attacking?” I asked.

No answer.

“Are you talking about an act of terrorism?” I lowered my voice. “You think it’s domestic or foreign?”

There were two ways to disrupt the grid—this much I knew. A software hack, something that could be initiated by people on the other side of the globe. Or a physical attack on the hardware—transmission lines, generators, turbines.

“If we knew any of that, do you think I’d be here?”

“What do the feds say?”

He didn’t respond. After a moment, he shrugged.

“You have brought them into this, right?”

“Of course.” He rolled his eyes. “Homeland Security, the FBI, and a bunch of other alphabet agencies are crawling over each other. It’s like a dick-measuring contest.” He paused. “But none of them have any viable leads at the moment.”

His statement implied the feds were on-site, which meant a hardware attack, not a network breach.

I took a sip of my coffee and then pushed the cup away. I wondered why Price had contacted me but decided not to take the time to ask. Minutes were dribbling away. Time for me to leave.

“Do you know what happens if the power grid goes down?” he said. “I’m talking more than just a few counties in Texas for an hour or two.”

“People go all
Mad Max
?” I asked. “And the doomsday preppers get to say I told you so?”

“Always the wisecracks.” He shook his head.

I sighed and then ran down the checklist for him—the stuff any military personnel or law-enforcement officer knows—just to prove I wasn’t a total smart-ass.

Most grocery stores only have three days’ worth of inventory. Perishable goods would spoil within a day or so. Gas pumps wouldn’t work, so food trucks couldn’t deliver nonperishable items. Banks wouldn’t be able to keep track of their money. Hospital generators would run out of fuel.

“And the economy grinds to a halt.” I finished my little speech.

He nodded. “Which means tax revenues drop, so Uncle Sam starts to run out of money.”

I looked at my phone. Nine text messages, all of them concerning the murder. I needed to get back to work. Coming here had been a mistake.

“The attack feels like a probing action,” he said. “Testing our security, the integrity of the grid. Our thinking is this is just a warm-up, getting ready for something big.”

We sat in silence for a moment. The waitress left the room.

“Sudamento would like some fresh eyes on this situation,” Price said. “We’re willing to pay you a substantial consulting fee.”

“When you were looking on Craigslist for ‘fresh eyes,’ did my name pop up?”

He didn’t reply.

“Is this the part where you remind me how I owe you?” I said. “The brothers-in-arms routine?”

I felt a momentary twinge for bringing up our history in such a manner. The feeling passed.

“Best of luck to you.” I slid from the booth, stood. “In case you haven’t noticed, I already have gainful employment. I’m a sheriff now, not a fed or a contractor.”

Price stood as well, moving close enough that I could smell his cologne, a subtle fragrance that made me think of sage and limes. Expensive, unlike Irving Patel’s drugstore brand.

“Skip the Andy Griffith routine,” he said.

We stared at each other, not blinking.

“Your former employer strong-armed you into this job,” he said. “You’d never even set foot in Peterson County until three months ago.”

I tried to control my anger. The sheriff’s job represented a chance at stability and a new start. I didn’t want people like Price Anderson screwing that up. I also didn’t want to admit, even to myself, how bored I was. The job really only occupied half my time. The rest of the day I spent wondering about Piper—the mother of my child—who had disappeared soon after our arrival in the county, along with my infant daughter.

“Let the feds do their job,” I said. “This is their turf.”

He chuckled. “Who do you think sent me?”

- CHAPTER EIGHT -

Sarah knows the LaCrosse is compromised.

The good-looking sheriff with the mirrored sunglasses is not stupid. She sensed that during their short encounter a few minutes ago. By now he’s found RockyRoad’s body, dead from a gunshot wound, with his cocaine and pistol and his pants pulled down.

Mildred Johnson, the identity she used to check into the motel, doesn’t exist. The only real information she’s left in her wake, other than a bucket full of forensics evidence that will take time to process, is the Buick LaCrosse.

Therefore, the vehicle has to go.

She speeds north on the access road, past the skeevy truck stop with its diner and strip club. She merges onto the highway, going the speed limit.

With the growth in Texas’s population in recent years, the interstate has become more—oh, how to put it—upscale. Gone for the most part are the biker bars, one-room liquor stores, and mom-and-pop porn shops.

Now it’s chain restaurants, outlet malls, and service stations advertising clean bathrooms. This, coupled with the advent of cheap video-monitoring systems, makes it damn hard to get rid of a hot car and find a new one.

Ten or twelve miles blow by before Sarah sees what she needs, a VFW hall with blacked-out windows, set back from the highway.

The building is cinder block, surrounded by a gravel parking area with only a handful of cars. Older models, easy to steal. No fancy electronic key fobs or LoJack systems for the VFW crowd.

She exits the interstate, doubles back, does a drive-by.

The building doesn’t have cameras.

At the rear of the structure, hidden from the road, sits a lime-green, late-1970s Monte Carlo.

Next to the VFW hall is an abandoned Whataburger.

Sarah parks at the shuttered fast-food restaurant. From the rear floor, she grabs a coat hanger and a rag. She wipes down the inside of the LaCrosse with the rag, gets out, does the same to the handle.

Her brother, Elias, two years older, had taught her how to steal an automobile. After getting out of the army, he’d learned the skill from a Mexican in Shreveport who used to boost cars for a chop shop in Sabine Parish.

With an old General Motors car like the Monte Carlo, all you need is a flat-head screwdriver. Sarah finds one in the trunk of the LaCrosse.

It’s a little after lunch. The sky is a cloudless haze, the color of pewter. Heat radiates off the cracked asphalt beneath her feet.

Purse on her shoulder, hanger and screwdriver in hand, she trots to the VFW hall, sweat trickling down the small of her back. She’s still wearing the shapeless raincoat and Dallas Cowboys ball cap.

No one is outside. She imagines the inside of the bar, dim and cool, full of day drinkers—old men talking about the price of corn and the way things used to be.

The driver’s side of the Monte Carlo is unlocked. Small mercies.

She throws the coat hanger across the lot. Opens the door, tosses the purse inside. She’s just about to slide behind the wheel when the rear exit of the VFW hall swings outward and a guy in overalls staggers into the heat, blinking, clutching a Schlitz tallboy.

Mr. Overalls is in his seventies and wobbly, drunk like a redneck at a tractor pull. He’s got the distended stomach and burst capillaries of someone whose natural state is soused.

He squints at Sarah, eyes watery.

Please go back to the bar,
Sarah says to herself.
I do not want to hurt you.

“Hey.” He points at her. “W-what are doing with Charlie’s car?”

His words slur. Charlie sounds like Sharley.

“Charlie said I could borrow it.” Sarah smiles.

“Charlie don’t loan his car out,” the old man says. “Are you his daughter?”

Sarah’s pocket vibrates, her real cell phone.

“Wait a minute.” Mr. Overalls scratches his head. “Charlie’s daughter is dead, right?”

Sarah doesn’t move. No sense boosting a car if it’s going to be reported stolen in the next thirty seconds. She could get back in the LaCrosse and look for another suitable vehicle, but she doesn’t want to take the time.

That leaves plan B. Take out Mr. Overalls.

The thought makes her stomach churn. The drunk is innocent. He shouldn’t have to die for her sins.

The old guy takes a long pull of beer. He squints at her like maybe he’s not sure what he’s seeing.

She imagines what her grandfather’s reaction to this current predicament would be. He’d have no hesitation. The old drunk would be on his way to the great VFW hall in the sky.

The cell keeps vibrating. She continues to ignore it. She touches the folding knife in the waistband of her jeans instead, her hand slick with perspiration.

“I never did like Charlie much.” The old drunk tosses the beer can away.

Sarah doesn’t say anything. Seconds tick by. Sweat beads on her forehead.

He peers into the distance, like something important is out there in the heat and the dust.

The vibrating phone stops.

Sarah slides the knife from her waistband.

The old drunk doesn’t appear to notice. He burps and walks away, headed down the side of the building.

She watches him for a moment. Then she hops behind the wheel, jams the screwdriver in the ignition, and starts the motor.

The old man seems to have forgotten Charlie and his Monte Carlo. At the corner of the building, he unzips his overalls, urinates into the gravel.

Sarah puts the car in reverse, backs out of the parking space. She glances once more at the old man, realizing he’s too drunk to remember her. Then she drives off.

Thirty seconds later, she’s on the interstate. The Monte Carlo is in pretty good shape, considering its age. The seat is worn and the carpet has holes, but the motor runs strong, as does the AC.

She pulls her cell phone out, checks the messages.

A recorded voice. Fear clutches at her heart like a talon. She jams the accelerator to the floor, ignoring the speed limit, and heads to Dallas.