Retro spoke up. “Holly, I’m the last guy who would defend Pike’s stupid antics, but he
Holly, eyes red and hair greasy, looked at him, then at me. She threw her hands up.
“All right. One phone call.” She pointed her finger at me. “But you now owe me dinner at the restaurant of my choice.”
“You got it,” I said.
We waited until the clock struck eight, then she dialed. Before anyone answered, I said, “We need to get a handle on this guy. Find out what he was doing at the prison. See if anything’s strange. Anything at all—”
She held up her hand. “Shut up.”
“Put it on speaker?”
She did.
She spent a couple of minutes verifying her credentials, going through the cop-talk lingo until the man on the other end was comfortable with the conversation. Eventually, she worked her way around to the ex-con, but the guy had no idea about him. He pulled the convict’s records, which didn’t tell us anything at all except that he’d been a troublemaker when he arrived but settled down into a rhythm where he became a model inmate, earning parole.
I whispered, “We need someone who worked with him. Someone who knows him personally.”
Holly glared, but made the request. The man on the phone said, “If he was released three years ago, I’m not sure anyone will remember. We do have quite a few inmates, you know.”
I heard him shuffling papers on his desk, then he said, “Well, Bobby was on his block during that time, and he’s still here. Want to talk to him?”
Holly stared daggers at me, letting me know that we were now wasting the time of people in a different state. “Please. If you don’t mind.”
A few minutes later, a deep baritone came on. “This is Bobby; how can I help you?”
Holly went through her descriptions again, and waited to be told this was a waste of time.
Bobby said, “Oh yeah, I remember him. A real badass when he showed up, but calmed right down. He ended up being a pretty good guy. I know everyone wants to bitch about Muslims nowadays, but we got a chaplain here who calmed down a whole crew of killers like him. I’ll tell ya, I’m all for that religion if it keeps the peace in here. Unlike that fucker Cyrus, spouting all his hate and stirring things up.”
I felt an electric jolt. So did everyone else in the room. Holly continued, no longer pissed.
“What do you mean? He was in a prayer group?”
“Yeah, him and about twenty others. A group of them, four or five, really took it seriously. We had to get special permission for the chaplain to come more than he was scheduled for those guys. It was a no-brainer, since racial violence was subsiding no matter how much Cyrus tried to stir it up.”
“Who’s the chaplain? Is he still there? Can we talk to him?”
“Unfortunately, no. He was a volunteer and quit coming about a month ago. Too bad, really. Violence is back up now.”
I cut in. “Bobby, how many of that small group are still in prison?”
“Just one. The rest were paroled because of good behavior. Last one about a year ago.”
I wrote down on a piece of paper,
Holly nodded, getting switched back over to the administrator. In fifteen minutes, we split up the list, calling each parole officer in four separate states. All four ex-cons were now model citizens, with each parole officer gushing the praises of their wards.
All four worked for the main power company in the state where they resided.
I said, “Collate that information into a single sheet. Names, addresses, supervisors, and anything else we can use to pin them down.”
Holly went to work. Retro said, “What are you going to do?”
“Find Kurt. Get this out, right now. We may already be too late.”
“Kurt’s at the Oversight Council, trying to get Omega authority for an asshole in Oman.”
“Well, they’re about to shift gears. That guy in Oman is nowhere near the threat we’re facing now.”
67
Keshawn drove down the deserted dirt road and pulled the truck alongside his beat-up Honda Civic. He got out and began to transfer the loaded EFPs and other equipment. He had decided to ignore Rafik’s orders about using the BGE vehicle, feeling more secure in his own car. He had been pleased when he was told he was on his own, because he thought driving the company truck — with an Arabic imposter wearing a BGE uniform — was absolute stupidity. Others might blindly follow Rafik’s orders, but Keshawn refused to do so.
The transfer complete, he continued down the road to his first target, a substation in the middle of nowhere. One that he’d sketched a month ago. He pulled the car around the back, hiding it in the wood line, then broke out the aiming tripod, his first EFP, and the M57 firing device from the trunk.
He found the same line of sight he had sketched before, and aimed the EFP through the chain-link fence to the extremely high voltage transformer within. He attached the two wires from the blasting cap to the M57, then tested the circuit. He got a green light. Placing the cap in the well for the EFP, he spooled the wire out to its maximum extension, having no idea how big the explosion would be. He crouched behind a large pine tree and took three deep breaths, looking at the M57 clacker in his hand.
He placed it between both hands and rapidly began to click the handle. On the third stroke, the air was split by an explosion, but there was little debris thrown his way. He turned and looked around the tree. The tripod lay on the ground, with the EFP tray vaporized, a small cloud of dust lingering in the air as the only reminder that it had existed. He walked out, searching the giant transformer for damage. He saw a hole in the chain-link fence, and a large tear in the metal sheath of the EHVT. Nothing else. He wondered if he’d screwed up, if maybe he’d failed to set up the EFP correctly. Then he noticed a silence for the first time. He’d thought it was because of the deafening noise of the explosion, but he could hear birds chirping in the distance. What he couldn’t hear was the hum of electricity flowing into the substation. He smiled.
68
I waited impatiently at the gate to the West Wing of the White House, trying to get inside the parking area of the Old Executive Office Building where the Oversight Council had convened. As expected, it had turned into an enormous pain in the ass, with me getting pissed off enough to want to start ripping heads. Jennifer, who’d come along, kept me calm while sweet-talking the guard there so that I wasn’t arrested.
Eventually, we were cleared for entrance. As I pulled into a parking space, I saw Kurt come out the side door of the building. He didn’t look happy.
“What the hell are you doing, Pike? I told you to go home. Why are you still here? We’re in a very delicate phase in Oman, and with the election shenanigans, your bullshit might cost us Omega authority with the council.”
I jumped out of the car. “Sir, I know what the terrorists are up to. It’s not Cyrus Mace, and it’s not a bunch of skinheads. It’s the terrorists from Egypt, and they’re about to try to destroy our electrical grid.”
