Total Power Read online

  “That’s our analysis as well,” Kennedy said. “Unfortunately, he might have found a muse.” She indicated to Dumond, who continued the thought.

  “A guy who goes by the name PowerStation sprung up in the ISIS chat rooms a while back and they’ve been having increasingly detailed and secure conversations with him.”

  “So, what’s PowerStation have to say?” Rapp asked.

  “That he knows how to take down the entire US electrical grid and keep it down for more than a year.”

  “My understanding is that’s easier said than done. And talk is cheap on the Internet.”

  “You have no idea,” Dumond said, shaking his head incredulously. “But this guy is different. He hasn’t given away too much, but it’s been enough to make it clear that he’s not just some basement dweller throwing around fancy jargon. He’s got expertise and a lot of it.”

  “And that’s who Kattan was coming to meet?”

  “Yeah. ISIS has been trying to get a face-to-face meeting with this asshole for a long time and he keeps blowing them off. A few days ago, he suddenly changed his mind and agreed.”

  “Why?”

  “Based on some other comments he’s made, we suspect that ISIS is just one of the groups he’s trying to sell his expertise to,” Kennedy said. “And they don’t seem to be his first choice.”

  “So, everyone else he’s gone to has turned him down.”

  “That’s our best guess. In fact, when he agreed to a meeting, he made a circumspect comment about hoping that ISIS wasn’t as useless as the Russians.”

  “You think he took this to the SVR?”

  “I imagine he tried. Whether he would be able to actually make meaningful contact with them is hard to say. Either way, I think we’re presented with an interesting opportunity.”

  “Which is what?”

  “With Kattan out of the picture, it seems likely that they’re going to have to delay their meeting long enough for ISIS to bring in another technology expert. And now that we have their communications…”

  “We might be able to get a time and location,” Rapp said, finishing her thought.

  “Exactly.”

  Rapp put his feet up on the coffee table and considered that for a few moments. “The clock’s ticking, though. How long can we keep the plane crash story alive? Eventually, someone’s going to figure out that there’s no wreckage and no bodies.”

  “We’re doing everything we can. So far, the weather’s cooperating with blizzard conditions in what we’ve designated as the crash site. Responders supplied by Jordi Cardenas will start filtering pictures of snow-covered wreckage to the press tomorrow. And, at least for now, we’re on reasonably solid ground withholding the names of the victims until all the families can be notified. So far, no one’s asking if it happened—only why.”

  “Except the conspiracy theory sites,” Dumond corrected. “But they can be handled. We have people on those twenty-four/seven leading people away from the idea that it was faked and putting more interesting theories out there. The theory that the Spanish military shot it down and is covering it up is getting a lot of traction. And, of course, there’s always the UFO angle. That stuff never gets old…”

  CHAPTER 8

  CENTERVILLE

  VIRGINIA

  USA

  HERE it comes.

  John Alton watched his boss’s approach through the interior windows of his office. Her face was devoid of expression and her gait supernaturally steady, as though her wedge heels were floating above the carpet instead of sinking into it.

  After years of working with Janice Crane at the DOE, he’d come to know her body language like the back of his hand. She was pissed as hell, but was going to maintain the calm reason that made her so popular with the people she worked with.

  Well, the other people she worked with anyway. As far as he was concerned, her grasp of technology was tenuous, her oh-so-inclusive management style was cloying, and her goody-two-shoes sense of duty was downright irritating. On the other hand, she always paid his exorbitant consulting fees on time. So, no point in complaining too much.

  She entered and closed the door behind her, smiling vaguely as she pushed a button that lowered the shades. Comfortably isolated from the outside world, she dispensed with her normal pleasantries and took an uninvited seat in front of his desk.

  “I assume you know why I’m here?”

  “No idea,” he replied, deciding not to give an inch. He’d been hired to analyze the vulnerabilities in America’s power grid and devise ways to fix them. Not kiss ass. Not play politics. And now he was on his way out after having done his job beyond all reasonable expectation. Fuck her and the wedge heels she rode in on.

  That vague smile again. She knew she was being played but refused to let it show. “I thought we might take a minute to talk about your performance at that congressional hearing.”

  “You wanted me there to back you up with facts and I did.”

  “Like always,” she said. “Your ability to keep all this information cataloged in your head never ceases to amaze.”

  There was a hint of sarcasm in her voice, but it wasn’t justified. What she was saying was one hundred percent accurate. After a couple of years at MIT, even his professors had started to struggle to keep up with him. He’d initially planned on staying for a master’s, but it became clear that there wasn’t anything left for them to teach him. Instead, he’d graduated a year early and immediately started a consulting company specializing in electrical utilities. Now, fifteen years later, he was a millionaire many times over. He had a huge house in a ritzy neighborhood. He had a Porsche Cayenne and a loaded Corvette. He had a mansion overlooking the ocean in Mexico. Basically, everything other people dreamed of, but couldn’t get their hands on.

  The cell phone next to his keyboard chirped and he glanced down at the incoming text notification. Its origin caused a brief jolt of adrenaline, but he managed to hide it. “Well, thank you for that, Janice. Now if you don’t mind I’ve got a lot of—”

  “I’m not done.”

  “No?”

  “No.”

  Crane leaned back and examined him. He stared back with equal intensity. In truth, she wasn’t a bad-looking woman. Early forties, with a curvy figure and blue eyes behind stylish glasses. Kind of like one of those aging strippers who get hired to show up to a birthday party disguised as an IRS agent. A few threatening words about your mortgage deduction, then off comes the blouse.

  He’d made a few advances early in their relationship, but she’d backed away. It was a common thread in his life. Women were intimidated by him. They always had been, going all the way back to high school. And now, with all the success he’d had in life, the effect was even more powerful.

  A slippery bunch, the fairer sex. On a grand scale, they couldn’t get much done. But they were masters of the mind game.

  “The first draft of the report is done, but that isn’t the end of it, John. The politicians, power companies, and lobbyists are going to want to put their spin on it. We need to figure out how to mitigate that. You worked really hard on this thing and have done an amazing job. Don’t sabotage it. If these politicians get their backs up, they’ll bury all your years of work just out of spite.”

  “I’m not a child psychologist and I don’t actually work for the government, Janice. I have a very specific written agreement with the DOE and I don’t remember stroking politicians being part of it.”

  She nodded thoughtfully but didn’t immediately speak. Another notification sounded on his phone but there was nothing he could do about it. Not until this woman got her ass out of his office. And at this rate, that might not happen until sometime next June.

  “Wouldn’t you like to see some good come of all your effort?” she said finally. “I mean, I agree one hundred percent with you. An attack like this is coming. And even if it’s only moderately successful, think of how many victims there will be. Think about who they’ll be. Sick people. Childre
n. The elderly. I don’t know if you’re close to your parents, but mine aren’t as young as they used to be. I can’t imagine how they’d get through a disaster like this.”

  In fact, he’d never known his father and his mother had died years ago. Not that it had really mattered to him—they’d never had any real connection. She’d had very little education and had spent her life working an endless string of low-level jobs. Her ability to understand the incredibly gifted son she’d given birth to had been nonexistent and she’d started distancing herself pretty much from the day he was born.

  Crane seemed to realize that the heartstring tugging wasn’t working and shifted strategies. “If you don’t care about anyone else, what about yourself? Because if an attack happens, it’s going to affect you, too. Even the nicest Corvette and biggest mansion don’t count for much if you can’t heat or put gas in them.”

  The familiar tone from his phone sounded again and his stomach clenched. If she wouldn’t end this pointless meeting, he would.

  “Okay, Janice. I admit it. I might have been a little out of line in that hearing. But like I said, I don’t work for the government. You might have built up a resistance to this bullshit over the years, but I haven’t. After five hours watching the theater of the absurd, I snapped.”

  “I haven’t built up a resistance,” she said through another forced smile. “But I’ve learned to pick my battles. And to avoid frontal assaults.”

  “Fine. You’re the expert. Just tell me what you need and I’ll give it to you. Maybe I don’t always show it, but I do think this is important. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t get so frustrated, you know?”

  Crane nodded and—thank God—stood. “I appreciate it, John. We’ll talk later.”

  She left the door ajar and he didn’t bother to close it before snatching up his phone.

  It wasn’t the Russians.

  Not surprising, but damned disappointing. After his meeting with their little hottie secret agent, they’d gone completely silent. Even still, he maintained a glimmer of hope that they’d decide at the last minute to nut up.

  That was better than the Chinese, though—they’d never even responded to his overtures. Same with the Cubans. He’d had a little more success with the Iranians but they’d turned out to be too afraid of ending up in a full-scale war with the United States to follow through. And then there were the North Koreans. He couldn’t even figure out how to get to those assholes.

  Surprisingly—and somewhat dangerously—it was ISIS that was coming through. They weren’t worried about retaliation, political clusterfucks, or jeopardizing their place in the world order. And, after working anonymously with them over the Internet, they were proving far more capable and organized than they got credit for.

  Alton checked the crack in his door before pulling up the encrypted text thread. It seemed strange to communicate so openly, but there was very little to fear from the idiots he worked with. That had been evident since the beginning of all this.

  And what an interesting beginning it had been. The whole thing had started as a lark. When he’d taken the contract and started diving into details of the power grid, he’d been stunned at the lack of security. When he’d breached the firewalls of his first few power companies, it had been in the interest of probing for weaknesses and creating safeguards. The same had been true of his initial review of America’s physical power infrastructure and its similar lack of security.

  Initially, the code he’d uploaded to the power company servers had been benign—little more than a practical way to demonstrate flaws. Eventually, though, the malware had become more sophisticated, as had his investigation of the connections between substations.

  He could still remember the exact moment his life had been transformed. Two years into the project he’d managed to get a worm to spread through more than half the country’s power companies. It was in that split second that he realized he could really do it. He had the access and tools to put the whole of America in the dark and keep it there. With little more than a wave of his hand, he could send the world’s most formidable country back to the eighteenth century.

  The congressmen like the one he’d just been grilled by thought they had power, but they didn’t even know the meaning of the word. If they were good at begging for money and telling people what they wanted to hear, maybe they could get people to vote them into a fancy office. From there, they could go to endless meetings that accomplished nothing, get good tables in mediocre DC restaurants, and have sex with moderately attractive interns. But they couldn’t change anything. Hell, they’d be lucky to get a memorial plaque put on some bridge in the middle of nowhere.

  Alton scrolled to the most recent ISIS text. As always, it was short and to the point.

  Meeting must be delayed.

  He stared down at it, feeling his chest tighten uncomfortably. If there was one thing he despised, it was unexpected changes. And, in truth, he had no desire at all to come face-to-face with these terrorist psychos. The Russian meeting had been exciting, but reasonably safe. They were professionals and that made them relatively predictable. ISIS was pretty much on the opposite end of the spectrum, but he didn’t have the luxury of keeping them at arm’s length. While the Russians were all ability and no motivation, the Arabs tended to be the opposite. They’d need hands-on guidance to pull off his plan. And while the additional risk was a little disconcerting, the idea of being personally involved was strangely exciting. It made the whole thing feel so much more intimate.

  Why the delay? he typed.

  None your affair was the immediate response.

  He rolled his eyes and tapped out a reply.

  Then go fuck yourself.

  He tossed the phone on his desk and began digging through one of his drawers in search of a file he’d misplaced. Predictably, another chime sounded after less than a minute.

  Our technology expert was on the plane that crashed in Spain. We have to bring in another.

  The vague tightness in Alton’s chest cinched down to the point that he suddenly found himself unable to breathe. That plane crash was complete bullshit. 4chan was completely lit up with all the incongruities and unknowns. Anyone with half a brain would see through the lies in less than a minute. But most people didn’t have half a brain. Hell, most people still believed the United States flew to the moon in a time when math was done on a slide rule.

  That the official story about the crash was bullshit had always been self-evident. The question was why the cover-up?

  Now he knew.

  CHAPTER 9

  SOUTHWESTERN VIRGINIA

  USA

  THE rain had eased, now more fog than precipitation. It combined with temperatures in the low thirties, coating the dead leaves beneath Rapp’s feet and the empty branches they’d fallen from. Moving silently was virtually impossible, but it didn’t matter. Other than a deer he’d spooked about an hour ago, the dark mountainside seemed devoid of life.

  The Sunset Motel became visible after another twenty minutes of picking his way down the slope, matching perfectly the detailed surveillance photos he’d seen the day before. In the end, it was a fairly simple structure—basically a straight two-story building with outdoor staircases and walkways. The parking lot in front had a small diner on its northeast edge but it would have closed hours ago around 9 p.m.

  Probably a third of the exterior bulbs were burned out, but they still provided enough illumination to make out six cars and one semitruck in the lot. Despite that, no light was bleeding around shades covering the back windows. It looked like all the guests were asleep.

  Based on the Agency’s monitoring of ISIS communications, Muhammad Nahas and his replacement technology expert would be meeting the enigmatic PowerStation there tomorrow morning. Three adjacent rooms had been reserved with a prepaid credit card that the eggheads back in Langley hadn’t been able to trace. The assumption was that the primary targets would meet in the middle room with security flanking them in the others, but it w
as impossible to be certain.

  Rapp closed in on the edge of the tree cover, trying to move as quietly as possible over a surface that had turned crunchy as temperatures continued to fall. Finally, he stopped, standing motionless for a good five minutes as he tried to pick up movement or anything else out of the ordinary. Satisfied there was nothing, he jogged across twenty yards of open terrain to the back of the motel.

  They’d been able to confirm that room seven wasn’t in use and Rapp slipped up to its rear window. There was a gap wide enough to accept the blade of his pocketknife and he used it to flip the latch. Getting the window to actually move proved a little more challenging, requiring him to throw almost his entire weight against it. Once it was open an inch, the contents of a small can of WD-40 made the rest of the job a hell of a lot easier.

  He climbed inside, sliding awkwardly onto a countertop with a hole where the sink had once been. After closing the window, he eased down to the floor, finding it covered with what were probably pieces of acoustic tile that had fallen from the ceiling. The stench of mold was overwhelming as he felt his way through the darkness and into the main part of the room. After skirting a bare mattress on the floor, he went to the front window and peeked around the curtain. Nothing unusual.

  And that wasn’t just a carefully created illusion. It was real. There wasn’t enough traffic flow in and out of this rural motel to absorb even one or two operators. They’d stand out like sore thumbs—particularly if they stayed more than one night. This wasn’t a place you lingered in. It was a lumpy mattress you fell onto when you got too tired to drive anymore.

  He stripped off his outer jacket, leaving the goose down layer beneath. The first electrical outlet he tried was dead but the second worked well enough to keep his phone charged. Less than a minute after he turned the device on, it began to vibrate subtly.

  “Go ahead,” Rapp said, picking up on a Bluetooth earpiece.

  “My tracker says you’re in,” Claudia said.