the vehicle seventy meters behind.
Retro had pinned the truck with his own Suburban and leapt out, Decoy right behind. The driver fiddled with something in the front seat, then exited with a yell, firing a pistol ineffectually at their advance. Retro and Decoy both pulled the trigger at the same time, splitting his head open. By the time I reached the vehicle, he was down. And absolutely dead.
“Find his phone. Get the numbers.”
I called Kurt. “We got one. Going to track the others with the numbers off of his phone.”
Kurt said, “What do you mean ‘we’?”
“I’ve got Jennifer with me,” I lied. “Tell the Virginia troopers they can collect the carcass that killed their men.” I gave him our location and hung up.
Decoy came up with the phone. “It’s a pay-as-you-go. Only one number in it. What do you want to do?”
I called Buckshot. “Put a techie on the line.”
I heard a faltering voice. “Hello?”
“I need a geolocation of a phone. And I need it in real time.”
“Uhhh… Okay. Give me the number.”
I passed it to him. He came back on. “Uhh… this is a CONUS number. I can’t do anything with the domestic telephony. I’m sorry. It’s illegal.”
“Put on Buckshot.”
He said, “Yeah?”
“Hit him.”
“What?”
“Hit him in the face. Right now. Then give him the phone.”
I heard a smack, then screaming. When the techie came back on, he was crying.
“Okay. You’re now under duress. It isn’t your fault. You were forced to track the phones. You understand?”
“Ye-Yes. I understand.”
“Get me the phone tracks right fucking now or I’m going to have Buckshot rip off your head.”
I hung up and began ripping through the power truck, looking for anything to give us a handle on the other two terrorists. Inside was a laptop computer displaying a news page on the blackout.
“Found the EFPs. He’s got three in here, so we stopped at least that many attacks.”
“That’s good, but not good enough. We need some way to track those guys. We only have one number, and at least two terrorists running around without GPS on their vehicles.”
Jennifer began going through the computer, looking for anything that might help us. She brought up the Internet history, clicking on recent pages. As I watched the screen slowly load, the Web page itself caused a flash of realization.
“Jennifer, how’s that computer online? What’s it using?”
She played with the keys for second. “Looks like an AT&T 3G connection.”
My phone rang. I interrupted the techie before he had a chance to say anything.
“Can you geolocate a company computer using the cell network to access the Internet?”
“Well, sure. Basically, it’s dialing in just like a cell phone. What service?”
“This one’s AT&T, but I don’t know about the one I need tracked.”
“Well, AT&T is a GSM network, so all I need is the IMEI number from the device.”
“What’s an IMEI?”
“Just a standardized number that identifies the device over the network. Every GSM cell phone has one.”
“How do I find it?”
“I can’t explain it over the phone. I need to see the computer.”
“Would there be records of that sort of thing? At the company? Is that something a company would keep if they issued a bunch of laptops with this service?”
“Yeah. Someone would have the number in case the computer was stolen. They’d want to turn off the service.”
“Put Buckshot on the line.”
When he came on, I told him to put a fire under the analysts, finding out if Pepco had computer hookups like Dominion, and if they did, to find the IMEI of the computer the ex-con had in his truck. I knew he’d have it on, doing the same thing as the man we’d just killed, enjoying the destruction he was unleashing. He clicked off, turning the phone back to the techie.
“What do you have on the phone number I gave you?” I asked.
He gave me a grid way out in the Maryland countryside, at a place called Calvert Cliffs.
“Put on an intel analyst.”
A guy came on immediately, sounding scared. I could imagine Buckshot standing behind him with a tire iron.
“I need a search of Calvert Cliffs, Maryland.” I gave him the cell phone track. “What’s there? Why would one of these phones show up there?”
He tapped on the computer for a few seconds, then said, “Nothing’s out there but wilderness. It’s known for its fossil remnants in the cliffs. That’s about it.”
“Bullshit. Something’s out there. What about power? Electricity? Jesus, do I need to do this myself?”
He came back immediately. “Sorry, I didn’t know the search terms. Right north of the fossil park is the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant. Two reactors butting up to the park, right on the Chesapeake Bay.”
73
Rafik broke out onto another gravel road, breathing hard and sweating. He had begun to worry about running out of water, the trip taking him much, much longer than he thought it would, with the forest thicker than he thought possible. He was supposed to be on high ground, according to his research, but most of the movement had been in swamps. He yanked his sleeve out of a thornbush, causing him to lose his balance and stumble back. Steadying himself on a small sapling, he took stock of his surroundings.
The road, really just a rutted path suitable for four-wheel-drive vehicles, wound in front of him, first perpendicular to his line of march, then going the same direction he was headed. It had a six-foot chain-link gate across it, blocking the trail alone, with the wood line doing the job to the left and right. The only thing preventing his advance was a line of signs proclaiming a warning. Crossing the road, he read: NO TRESPASSING. THIS AREA IS UNDER CONSTANT SURVEILLANCE AND SUBJECT TO ROUTINE PATROLS.
The prohibition was repeated in Spanish, and staked out every thirty feet. He smiled.
He continued on, paralleling the gravel road until it wound out to the east and the coast. He continued straight north, finally heading uphill, until he broke out onto a spit of a ridgeline jutting into the Chesapeake Bay.
Spread below him was the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Plant, housing two nuclear reactors that had been in operation since the 1970s. The plant space itself was massive, but the two unique concrete domes designed to protect the reactors stood out prominently, the nearest one about one hundred and twenty meters away, down in the low ground of the valley. Just beyond them, to the west, was the immense electrical transfer point for the energy being produced here, and his planned target.
He studied the myriad of components, looking for the EHVTs used, based on his historical research of nuclear facilities. He became painfully aware of the distance between his location and them. It was close to three hundred
