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  Once on board, he took his seat next to a sturdy young woman with short blond hair and an even shorter skirt. She smiled at him as he shoved his bag beneath the seat in front of him and then went back to scrolling through pictures of herself on her phone.

  The crush of people fighting for overhead space gave him an opportunity to look around unnoticed. One of Nahas’s men was out of sight near the back of the plane. Another was in the aisle ahead, still trying to reach his seat. The last was sitting three rows back next to a little gay man.

  The woman next to him kicked off her red heels and closed her eyes. The top three buttons of her blouse were undone, revealing intermittent flashes of a lacy bra. He looked down at the tan skin of her chest for a moment and then turned away.

  Western whore.

  CHAPTER 4

  CAPITOL COMPLEX

  WASHINGTON, DC

  USA

  JOHN Alton’s eyes moved from the deep blue carpet to the portrait of some old white guy hanging on the wall. The hearing was now into its fifth hour and the number of congresspeople in attendance had dwindled to six. A few had never even bothered to show up, leaving their elevated seats occupied only by the relevant name plates.

  Witnesses consisted of an endless parade of government regulators, military personnel, and power company executives—all with their own self-serving agendas and all completely clueless as to what they were talking about. The man currently in the hot seat was the head of a large West Coast utility company. He’d spent the last fifteen minutes crying a river over how even the slightest change to the regulatory environment would absolutely decimate his ability to provide power to millions of customers.

  His personal net worth? Around a hundred million dollars. Poor guy. How would he make ends meet if he had to update his twenty-five-year-old computer systems and put eight-dollar padlocks on the gates of his electrical substations?

  He finally stopped whining and kissed a little congressional ass before ceding his seat to Alton’s boss. Janice Crane ran the Department of Energy’s Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response, and had been put in charge of assessing the vulnerabilities of America’s power grid. It had taken almost five years, but the report was now all but complete. Twenty-eight hundred pages of detailed technical analysis that she had only a basic understanding of. In fact, it had been Alton’s one-man consulting firm and its myriad subcontractors who had compiled the data. As she’d requested, he walked up the aisle and settled into the seat behind her.

  Davis Graves, the congressman overseeing the hearing, dispensed with the normal niceties. “We’ve heard a number of perspectives from a number of people, Ms. Crane, and I’m sure we’re all interested in your thoughts since it’s your department that created the report. And it’s quite a doorstop, isn’t it?”

  Crane leaned into her microphone. “I wish it were shorter, sir. But we uncovered a lot of vulnerabilities.”

  “I have to admit that I find the tone of this report a bit hysterical,” the man continued. “And it seems that many of the people who’ve testified today agree. There are threats everywhere, Ms. Crane. I could get hit by an asteroid right now. But I don’t think America should pay for an asteroid shield over the head of every one of its citizens. How much money and effort should we put into protecting ourselves against every potential threat that could happen but never has?”

  “With all due respect, sir, I don’t agree. For instance, a number of US energy companies were recently targeted in a cyberattack called Dragonfly. In many of those incursions, the hackers were able to access the companies’ networks and gain operational control. What I mean by that is they had the ability to take over parts of our grid. They could reroute power, trip breakers—”

  “But they didn’t,” another congressman interrupted.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You tell us that they had all this power, but they didn’t use it. And because of this, we should put an incredible burden on power companies to protect themselves from this kind of non-attack.”

  “Again, sir, I disagree. It’s like saying that we shouldn’t protect ourselves against an opposing army probing our defenses because they haven’t bombed us yet.”

  The congressman opened his mouth to respond, but she ignored him and kept talking. A condescending smile played at Alton’s lips. Janice was feeling spunky today. She must have doubled up on her latté at lunch.

  “If you want an attack that was carried out, you don’t have to look any further than the Metcalf substation in California. A single perpetrator managed to take out seventeen transformers with just a rifle. The—”

  “And what was the effect of that attack, Ms. Crane?”

  “Power outages were limited because the utility was able to divert electricity from other—”

  “And how many substations do we have?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You said this man did damage to one of our substations. How many are there in the US?”

  She glanced back at Alton, who mouthed the answer.

  “About fifty-five thousand, sir.”

  “So, he managed to temporarily damage one fifty-five thousandth of our power generation capacity and caused a few people to lose power for a couple of hours.”

  “The problem is the attack had indications of being a dry run. A proof of concept. And the perpetrator’s never been caught. This didn’t turn out to be a serious issue because it was only one minor installation. Based on our analysis, though, a coordinated attack on only a handful of critical substations could take down the entire US grid.”

  “When you say a handful, how many do you mean? A hundred? A thousand?”

  Again, she turned to Alton. This time he just held up fingers.

  “Nine, sir.”

  The congressman laughed. “Nine? We have fifty-five thousand substations and you’re telling me that the loss of nine could put the entire country in the dark?”

  “That’s correct, sir. In fact, it was that realization that prompted Congress to request the vulnerability report that we’re talking about now.”

  “I’ve experienced blackouts,” another congressman interjected. “In fact, I lived through the blackout caused by Superstorm Sandy. And while I agree it was a serious incident, even combined with a hurricane, it wasn’t quite the Armageddon you suggest.”

  “Sandy was by no means a worst-case scenario, sir. With storms, there’s advance warning and the damage is random as opposed to targeted. Further, that blackout only affected a portion of a single city for a few days. A coordinated attack could conceivably put the entire country in the dark for more than a year.”

  Graves actually laughed at that. “Again, the hysterical tone of your report rears its ugly head. In the incredibly unlikely event that nine of our substations were simultaneously destroyed, why wouldn’t we just fix them?”

  Alton didn’t bother to hide his widening grin. These people were complete fucking idiots. And worse, they were complete fucking idiots who thought they were geniuses. The most dangerous kind, but just the kind the American people loved to vote for.

  “There are very few manufacturers of this type of equipment and most of them are overseas. Also, it can take over a year to build one—they’re designed custom for every application. And if that were the case—if it took a year for us to get the power back on—it would be…” Her voice faded for a moment. “It really would be the Armageddon you mentioned earlier.”

  “Oh, come on…” the man said. “I feel like that’s just inflammatory language, Ms. Crane. We’re trying to have a reasonable conversation here and I don’t appreciate it.”

  “Years ago, a congressional commission estimated that if the power went out for one year, ninety percent of our population would die. I think the use of the inflammatory language is warranted, sir.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Everything’s a disaster to you people. You’re a regulator, so you regulate. You create these wild scenarios and tell us that everybody’
s going to die so you can expand your own authority. You—”

  Alton tried to control his snickering, going so far as to cover his mouth, but it was impossible. When the congressman noticed, he fell silent and stared directly at him. Alton looked around and discovered that every eye in the half-empty gallery was fixed on him. Expressions ranged from confused to stunned. The look on his boss’s face, though, was more a mix of fury and terror.

  “Is something funny?” the congressman asked finally.

  Alton considered his response for a moment. The fact was that he’d completed the job he’d been contracted to do and his pockets were already lined with embarrassing amounts of taxpayer money. What was this asshole going to do? Fire him? A little late for that.

  “Frankly, yeah,” he said finally. “Let me ask you a question, Congressman. What would you do?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Let me set the scene. You wake up and you have no power. No light, no heat, no air-conditioning. Restaurants basically give away all their food in the first couple of days of the blackout because of the loss of refrigeration. Within another day or two every grocery store in America is completely empty. And because the blackout is nationwide, none are being restocked. Food production relies on electricity. And transportation relies on gasoline, which in turn relies on electric pumps. And don’t wait for FEMA or the National Guard to bail you out, because they don’t have any power, either. First responders have stashes of supplies, so they’ll be up and running, but those stashes aren’t going to last long. They’ll barely have time to free the people stuck in elevators before they have to start worrying about their own survival. And that’s just the pleasant stuff. In a few more days, the water pressure is going to start to fail. So you’re living in the middle of DC, you’ve got only the food in your pantry, your toilets don’t work, and nothing’s coming out of your tap. What do you do?”

  The congressman looked like the top of his head was going to explode. “The American people are the most capable and resilient in the world. More government isn’t the answer to everything. They’d pull together—”

  “And do what?” Alton interrupted. “Bring you a sandwich? Maybe carry away the bucket you and your family are shitting in? Let me tell you what—”

  “Perhaps we should move on,” the congressman on the far right said. He had recently announced his retirement and was no longer beholden to the idiots the Founding Fathers knew better than to allow to vote. Maybe he would have something intelligent to say, but Alton was doubtful.

  “Any way you look at it, this is a serious issue,” the man continued. “So why don’t we talk a little about what we can do to keep this gentleman’s scenario from playing out?”

  “Thank you,” Crane said, clearly anxious to move on. “As has been pointed out, this is a pretty extensive report, but I think I can summarize our findings and get you out of here before midnight. We need a massive upgrade to our grid and the integration of significantly more renewable energy, which is intermittent, but less vulnerable to being taken off-line for long periods of time. We need to harden the physical security around our critical infrastructure. And finally, we need to create, build, and stockpile universal recovery transformers that can be used to quickly replace damaged ones. The ultimate goal, though, would be to heavily distribute our energy production and match it to critical areas. So, food manufacturing plants, fire stations, and water treatment facilities, to name only a few, would have their own generation and storage capability. Eventually, we’d like to see those capabilities move to an individual level—solar panels on people’s houses, batteries in their basements, and the like. The technology is getting to where this is absolutely feasible if the government takes a leadership role.”

  “And what would all this cost, Ms. Crane?”

  “The implementation of our minimum recommendations would run around two billion dollars. A full upgrade would climb to more like five billion.”

  “Are you joking?” Congressman Graves said, trying to regain control of the hearing. “These are businesses. Where is all this money going to come from?”

  “I would imagine through increased rates to customers.”

  “The American people are already struggling to pay their bills and now you want me to make it impossible for them to heat their homes?”

  Alton let out a low groan. What a load of horseshit. The American people couldn’t buy thousand-dollar cell phones and big-screen TVs fast enough. What was it about politicians that made them behave like everyone in the United States was half starved? Had they not noticed how fat people were?

  “Security!” Graves said, pointing down at Alton. “Remove that man!”

  Whoops. Apparently, that groan wasn’t as low as he’d thought.

  The retiring politician held a hand out, stopping the security guard before he could even make it to the aisle.

  “Who is this gentleman?”

  Janice Crane leaned reluctantly into her microphone. “John Alton, sir. He’s the energy consultant that took the lead in creating the report that’s in front of you.”

  “So, would it be fair to say he’s an expert on America’s power grid?”

  “I’m afraid so, sir. In fact, it would be fair to say he’s the expert on America’s power grid.”

  “You seem frustrated by this process, Mr. Alton. Would that be a fair characterization?”

  Crane shot him an icy stare, but he didn’t really give a shit. She couldn’t do anything for him anymore. And even if she could, pretty soon it wouldn’t matter.

  “Yeah, I’d say that’s fair.”

  “Would you care to explain why?”

  “Because this is coming. It’s not an if, it’s a when and how bad. A few years ago, in order to pull off something this big, you’d have needed a major state actor—Russia or China. Now we’re at the point where a minor power—say, Iran or North Korea—could probably get it done. If we don’t do anything to protect ourselves, a few years from now we’re going to be looking at the possibility that a teenager with a laptop could put half the US in the dark. So, the chance of us suffering a serious attack on our grid is pretty much a hundred percent. And what are we going to do about it? Nothing. We’re going to blow all the money that we could use to secure it on a new paint job for one of our aircraft carriers. Which, in the unlikely event that America ever engages in another major naval battle, would immediately get taken out by a hundred-thousand-dollar missile.”

  “So, you’re an expert in military affairs, too?” Graves interjected.

  “I’m an expert in common sense. Why would Russia or North Korea get into a drawn-out shooting war with us when they know we have the largest military in the world? Wouldn’t it be a lot smarter to hit our grid, kill ninety percent of our population, and leave us unable to retaliate because we don’t actually know for sure who attacked us?”

  “As much as I don’t like Mr. Alton’s disrespectful delivery,” the congressman on his way out said, “it’s hard not to sympathize with his conclusions. America won World War Two. We went to the moon. By comparison, upgrading and securing out grid seems trivial. And if the stakes are only half as high as this report says, five billion seems like a bargain.”

  Not surprisingly, a heated discussion ensued. On one side, a retiring politician who now had the luxury of actually giving a shit about what happened to America. And on the other, an entrenched politician who only worried about getting the utility companies to give him enough campaign funds to convince the sheep to vote for him again.

  Alton watched silently, happy to finally get a little entertainment after being stuck in this hearing all day. Humans really were just monkeys throwing feces. They’d grandstand for a while and then make a few backroom deals that led to absolutely no action at all.

  In any event, they couldn’t say that he hadn’t warned them. He’d told them exactly what was going to happen and wrote thousands of pages on how. You could bring a human to water, but you couldn’t make him drink. The
unfairly maligned horses that were the subject of the original proverb, on the other hand, were smart enough to know a good thing when they saw it.

  CHAPTER 5

  OVER THE SIERRA NEVADA MOUNTAINS

  SOUTHERN SPAIN

  “I’M sorry,” the flight attendant said in a pleasant Spanish accent. “We’re out of Coke. Can I get you something else?”

  “Water,” Rapp said.

  “Sparkling or still?”

  So many decisions.

  “Sparkling.”

  She dropped a lime and some ice in a cup and handed it to him along with the can. A moment later, she’d moved on to the passengers behind.

  With his sight line clear again, Rapp was able to take in the plane’s cabin. He was in an aisle seat located near the back. One of the Arabs armed with a gun was sitting directly in front of him. The tango with the knife was six rows ahead sitting next to Charlie Wicker. Coleman was two rows ahead of that, kitty corner to Kattan. The other gun toter was one row ahead of Kattan, covered by Bruno McGraw in the seat next to him. Maslick was squeezed up front, keeping an eye on the Pakistani.

  The calm before the storm.

  They leveled out and the seat belt sign went off, prompting the tango in front of him to get up and head for the bathroom. Rapp resisted the urge to crane his neck and follow the man’s progress, instead looking across the people seated next to him and out the window into the darkness. At this point, they were over a rugged and largely uninhabited part of the Sierra Nevada mountain range. Below the cloud layer, rain had reportedly turned to snow, providing a perfect environment for the operation he’d planned. And if things went wrong, a little fresh powder might soften the impact when they plummeted from the sky. If it was deep, maybe they could scrape up enough of him to put in a coffin.

  Within ten minutes from the seat belt sign going off, three of the four suspected terrorists had gone to the bathroom and returned to their seats. Tellingly, all had taken their carry-ons. The exception was the Pakistani near the front of the plane. He’d stayed put and his carry-on was in the overhead, providing further evidence that he wasn’t involved. Not that it mattered. When the shit hit the fan, the Pakistani would find the better part of three hundred pounds of fat-suit encased muscle coming at him at like a freight train.