America’s social fabric was starting to come apart at the seams.
CHAPTER 17
BLACKOUT
A severe autumn storm the howling, roaring creation of high winds and driving sheets of ice-cold rain tore across Maryland and Virginia just after dark. The long, black wall of clouds came pouring down out of the Blue Ridge Mountains, scudding eastward across rolling hills, woods, and open farmland toward the Chesapeake Bay. Thirty miles northwest of Washington, D.C., the storm swept over the tall steel towers of the PennMarVa Electrical Intertie.
The intertie’s transmission lines linked Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia electric utilities together in a common power pool. Under normal conditions, the network enhanced each company’s market and power supply position.
Lines running north gave them access to cheaper hydroelectric power routed from Canada. The intertie also made it possible for member utilities to swap electricity back and forth to meet unexpected demand or to make up for out-of-commission generating plants.
Now, though, the power transmission network was a liability a weak point open to attack. Its long high- voltage lines were especially vulnerable where they crossed the Potomac.
Sefer Halovic turned his face to the bitter, clearising wind with something very like exultation in his soul. For him the storm was a manifestation of God’s power a vast and elemental force lashing out at America’s sophisticated technology and its material works. It was surely a sign of divine favor for his own secret war.
Strengthened by this revelation, he swung back to the task at hand.
A massive electrical transmission tower loomed out of the darkness above him like some primeval monster. As warning to low-flying aircraft, a ruby-red light blinked at its peak, one hundred and fifty feet above the ground. The fierce wind keening through the tower’s steel girders rose and fell in eerie counterpoint to the low, crackling hum of raw electricity coursing through the 500-kilovolt lines it supported.
Halovic peered through a blinding torrent of rain, following the swaying power lines northward across the Potomac until they disappeared in the swirling darkness well short of the Maryland shore. Another tower soared there, visible only as a hazy, pulsing glow in the distance. Truly, this was the place to strike, he thought. Once again, General Taleh’s planners had done their work well.
He felt a hand on his shoulder and turned.
Khalil Yassine had to yell to be heard over the wind and rain. “The charges are in place!”
“Good!” Halovic patted the backpack slung from his left shoulder. “I will place the detonators myself Use the radio. Find out how Nizrahim and his men are coming along.”
The young Palestinian nodded sharply and slithered down the rain-soaked slope toward where they’d parked the vehicle they were using tonight a dark-colored jeep Wrangler. It held the automatic weapons they would need later, spare explosives, and communications gear.
Halovic moved in the opposite direction, toward the nearest leg of the giant transmission tower. He knelt beside the white blocks of plastic explosive Yassine had molded to the steel, and reached inside the backpack for a reel of detonator cord. More blocks of C4 were visible on another of the tower’s four supports. Ignoring the freezing rain soaking through his jacket, the Bosnian began his delicate work. First, he stuck sections of the detcord into all of the charges the younger man had placed. Then he spliced the separate lengths together. He did not hurry. Men who took foolish chances when rigging demolitions rarely lived to regret their haste.
Satisfied that his splices would hold, Halovic started back toward the Wrangler, carefully trailing the detonator cord behind him. Again, he took his time, making sure of his footing before taking any step. Slipping in the mud now could undo all his hard work.
The Bosnian would have preferred using a surer, easier means to set off his explosives, but that was impossible. This close to a high-voltage source, timed or electrical detonators were too likely to malfunction or go off prematurely.
Yassine rejoined him halfway down the slope. “Nizrahim says they are almost ready. He is standing by.”
Halovic nodded without looking up.
Five minutes later, he knelt again, this time on the muddy access road next to their stolen Jeep. This far away, the transmission tower was only a halfseen blur through the pouring rain. A dirt embankment offered rudimentary cover. He pulled more equipment out of his backpack. In quick succession he taped the end of the detcord around a nonelectric blasting cap and then attached a time fuse and fuse lighter. Ready.
Halovic climbed up the embankment and gently placed the detonator assembly on the ground within easy reach. Then he slid back down the embankment. Set.
Yassine crouched beside him holding the walkie-talkie to his face as though it were a sacred talisman.
The Bosnian reached up and gripped the pull ring on the fuse lighter. He glanced at his companion and nodded sharply. “Go!”
The younger man clicked the transmit button on the walkie-talkie.
“Fire!”
In that same instant Halovic yanked the pull ring out of the lighter and flattened himself against the embankment. The blasting cap exploded, sending fire racing through the detonator cord at 21,000 feet per second.
THUMMP. THUMMP. Harsh white light flared against the dark, rain-drenched sky as their plastic explosives went off, shearing through hardened steel supports as though they were butter.
Two more explosions echoed across the river as the charges Nizrahim’s team had set on the Maryland tower detonated.
Halovic cautiously raised his head over the embankment to check his handiwork.
With two of its four steel supports shattered, the Virginiaside transmission tower shuddered, whipping back and forth through the rain. Then gravity and its own enormous weight took hold. Girders and bolts buckled under stresses they were never designed to withstand. Slowly first and then faster, amid the wrenching scream of tearing metal, the tower swayed sideways and toppled.
The long, twin 500-kv lines fell with it, whirring downward through the air, smashing through trees, and splashing into the white-capped Potomac. On the way down, they made contact and shorted out. Streamers of hellish blue light arced back and forth between the swishing wires like bolts of lightning trapped in a narrow space. Abruptly, everything went black.
Halovic blinked away the dazzling afterimages and turned toward his staring, openmouthed companion. “Come, Yassine. We have much more to do before we are done.”
The Palestinian nodded and followed him down the embankment to their waiting vehicle.
As planned, the terrorist attack came at the worst possible time the hour just after sunset when the demand for electricity peaked. Streets were now brightly lit against the gathering darkness. Office lights, computers, and copiers were still on. And millions of people coming home from work or school were flipping on lamps, televisions, ovens, and microwaves.
So when the PennMarVa Intertie’s 500-kv line went down, it created havoc in seconds. Current was still flowing south with nowhere to go. Emergency circuit breakers tripped automatically, desperately shunting the electrical load to secondary 230-kv lines. But the cascading load was too much for them to handle. Line temperatures rose rapidly, climbing toward the danger zone. More circuit breakers blew out across the entire system.
As alarms blared through several utility control canters, their computers swung into action, fighting for precedence among themselves as they tried to bring transmission lines back up. Power outages hopscotched across a vast area south from Gettysburg all the way to Williamsburg, Virginia. More and more substations and secondary
