Power Trip Read online

  I looked up at Fife. “That explanation is ridiculous.”

  “Of course it is. But I don’t blame the power plant folks for scrambling to come up with an answer. They have thousands of people in the great white north without power for two days in December, and those people want to at least know why. Who in the world would expect sabotage? Offering customers a cosmic explanation, even a farfetched one, is better than suggesting that knaves are attempting to murder everyone. No sense creating panic.”

  “Knaves. Wow, you really did work for Quanta, didn’t you?” I read a little more of the story, then pushed the tablet back to Fife. “Smart to target small facilities in lightly-populated areas. This is probably one of the only pieces we’d be able to find on this. A buried news story, to say the least.”

  “A perfect pair of testing grounds. This won’t cause anyone to go on alert.”

  “They were able to eventually repair the damage, though.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “But we had our own engineers look at the data. The drones significantly destroyed two power plants in isolated rural areas with a pulse that lasted less than half-a-second.”

  “Shut up.”

  “I shit you not. One geek in the Q2 labs said it was probably .32 of a second, to be exact. He did the math. Are you gonna question those guys?”

  “Jesus.”

  “Yeah. Now extrapolate that with a series of pulses, each lasting 15 seconds, hitting a major metropolitan area in the U.S.”

  I didn’t want to extrapolate anything. I couldn’t fathom what kind of devastation we were talking about. We changed the subject to the little machines tasked with carrying the pulse-makers to elevation.

  “Well,” Fife said, “that’s a big question mark. The early studies conducted decades ago on EMP patterns suggested you needed to be very high in the atmosphere to cause paralyzing damage. Some said 50 miles up or more. But that was a long time ago, and we’re not talking about one or two big blasts designed to saturate the country.”

  “No,” I said. “So if LoGo wants to cripple an individual metro area they don’t need a drone to cruise to the top of the stratosphere. What’s that layer below it called?”

  “Troposphere.”

  “Yes. And that’s probably enough, right? Seven to ten miles up?”

  He shrugged. “Best guess from our side is that two miles is plenty high enough.”

  “For these drones,” I said, “two miles is nothing. Where are we on hunting them down?”

  “A big zero. Nobody can find them. We know they were built and then shipped. Two were obviously used for the tests up north, and we’re assuming those were possibly recovered, but more likely programmed to fly off to the boonies and crash themselves where no one would trip over them for years. As remote as those places are, maybe never. That’s easier than doing a recovery that might catch someone’s attention.”

  I’d finished my blue drink and switched to beer. This second drink would be my last. I needed a clear head. Our food arrived, but I found that after two days of devouring everything in sight I’d lost my appetite. I was crossing over into game-day mode, and now food didn’t sound appealing at all. Fife picked at his choice for a few minutes but also seemed to have too much on his mind. The manager came over and worried over our full plates, offering to get us something else if these weren’t to our liking. I told him it had nothing to do with the meals; we’d each just broken up with our girlfriends. His response: “Well, you’re in the right place to find replacements.”

  We laughed graciously until he walked away.

  “All right,” I said. “We have devices capable of delivering an electromagnetic pulse that could melt an entire region’s power supply. There are flying machines able to lift them to a suitable height to spread the most damage. That leaves us with the issue of location. Which cities are on the possible target list, and where will this operation be based? Which leads us to the satellite data, I’m assuming.”

  He punched in a different screen on the tablet and spun it around. “Let’s talk about the island owned by the Ormond family. It’s about 1,200 miles from Miami, southeast. We had our bird snap a few photos from low orbit. The imagery these days is incredible. I’m told if we really want to we can tell if it’s a three of hearts or jack of spades from 90 miles up.”

  He pointed. “This shot was taken three years ago, just a random image collected as part of a bigger catalogue of the area. You can see from the enlargement that the island had nothing. A couple small buildings, but really no infrastructure.”

  He swiped to a new image. “Twenty hours ago. What do you see?”

  I leaned in. “I see the fortress I was worried about.”

  It was true. In three years the twins had heavily developed the small but stout island. Three medium-sized buildings sat just beyond one massive structure. This clearly wasn’t a playground for the rich; it was a castle for royalty, built with defense in mind, with the Caribbean Sea acting as one gigantic moat. Indeed, all of it appeared fortified, reminiscent of medieval castles.

  I indicated a cluster of square patterns at various points around the perimeter of the island. “What are these?”

  “As best we can tell it’s a network of towers.”

  “Guard towers?”

  “Well, yes,” he said, “in a way. They’re set up in a defensive pattern.”

  “Lucas and Gillian don’t care for uninvited guests.” My eyes darted around the image, then I pinched the screen to enlarge it. “Solar collectors, naturally. A wind turbine. And these . . .” I pointed just offshore. “Something to harness the sea’s power, no doubt?”

  “A tidal energy generator, we think.”

  I shook my head. “Damn, this company could make a huge difference in the world if it wasn’t run by lunatics.”

  Fife pushed his plate away. “Oh, they intend to make a huge difference.”

  We spent a few minutes discussing their defensive strength. Quanta had reported that the island now contained about 150 people, with more arriving each day. We estimated that at least 60 of these were mercenaries, with military training at the very least. The rest of the group likely was made up of science specialists and household staff.

  It was a classic setup to prevent a traditional air strike. Dozens of innocent people now lived on the island. Human shields. Unless the creeps running the show actually committed the atrocity we anticipated, the United States couldn’t afford to take deadly military action. Again, it required a stealthy Q2 operation.

  “So there’s your base,” Fife said. “All right, Mr. Trojan Horse. It’s your move. You have a week until the Christmas lights go out for good.”

  An hour later I was back in my room, looking out the window from my sixth floor perch. I stared across the moonlit expanse of water toward the southeast. Somewhere out there, 1,200 miles away, a compound had been prepared, designed to act as an oasis in a virtual desert of disarray. All in the name of revenge for one person.

  I sipped from a bottled water and thought about that. What kind of monsters set out to destroy the lives of thousands — or more — of innocent people while ripping apart a city’s very fabric of existence?

  When you take on the kind of job I do, your mission is to save those lives. But I have people I love. Well, a person. So that’s how I prepare for the dirty work. Yes, there are many lives in the balance, but ultimately I’m protecting Christina. The target might very well be Washington, and she had no idea that her entire world could be on the verge of collapsing. Everything she knows would be thrown into chaos.

  And, if I had to sum it up in one, succinct sentence: Assholes need to be crushed.

  My phone vibrated. Another video call from Poole, who was working late again. I had a momentary pang of guilt that I’d originally bitched about her to Quanta. Poole was turning out to be a damned good agent, serving her country from a dingy office with leftover spaghetti.

  She was dressed casually, but it was, after all, almost ten o’clock. “Po
ole, how is our national seat of government today?”

  The usual pause as she digested my question. “If you’re asking about Washington’s weather, it’s starting to snow.”

  “That’s too bad,” I said. “I worked on my tan today. So what’s up?”

  “I have information you’ll find interesting. I don’t know if it bears any relevance on the operation other than to fill in some gaps about the main players.”

  This sounded good, almost like Poole was about to dish dirt on people. Somehow that delighted me. “I’m all ears.”

  She switched the screen to an image of a woman. “This picture is 12 years old, and was difficult to find. Our researchers had a tremendously hard time getting much on her at all. The agent who turned in this report told me it was the hardest information she’s ever had to track down.”

  The woman in the photo looked about 50, a candid shot taken at what may have been a formal dinner. She was a stoic figure, gaunt to the point of seeming ill. Her dark hair with minor streaks of gray was short but styled well, her eyes nearly vacant. The word my mind instantly attached was unhappy. That might be unfair, but we tend to assign a lot of power to first impressions. She looked vaguely familiar but I was certain I’d never seen her before. I grunted and took a drink of water. “All right, who am I looking at?”

  “Her name is Julianne Ormond.”

  I almost choked. “Holy shit, you found the twins’ mom. Poole, that’s excellent. Where is she?”

  “That we don’t know. The most current information we could find on her is more than seven years old. In this photo she was 52, which makes her 64 today. But no trace of her, no online records for years.”

  “That’s hard to do. A death certificate, perhaps?”

  “Nothing on record anywhere. She disappeared seven years ago, and the indication is she hid out in one of the many luxurious properties Niall collected over the years.”

  I frowned. “So she didn’t live full-time with her husband, just stayed at one of the retreats?”

  “We think so. Um, Niall and Julianne Ormond didn’t have a traditional marriage.”

  “Hey, that happens. More than people think.”

  She hesitated and switched the image back to herself. “Yes, that’s true. But . . . well, this relationship is a little more non-traditional than most.”

  The look on Poole’s face made me laugh. She seemed so uncomfortable with the entire discussion, like she was wading into a basement that had filled with backed-up sewage. If anything, it made her all the more charming. I had definitely misjudged our prim assistant.

  “Spit it out, Poole. I wanna hear the non-traditional details.”

  She actually looked to the side as she spoke, I think out of embarrassment. “Julianne Ormond is her married name,” she said. “Her maiden name was Julianne Croft, and she was actually related to Niall.”

  I let this sink in for a moment. “Are you saying they were cousins?”

  “No.”

  There was a long silence, so long that I finally laughed again. “For Christ’s sake, Poole, enough with the suspense. Who was Julianne Ormond and how was she related to Niall?”

  Poole looked back at the screen and sat up straight, using her own pride and dignity to separate herself from the distasteful news she was forced to present. “Julianne Ormond is Niall’s wife. And also his sister.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  If you’ve ever seen the classic Jack Nicholson/Faye Dunaway movie Chinatown then you know the scene that immediately splashed across my mind. If you haven’t seen it, you should. In the meantime, I won’t spoil too much except to say that Julianne Ormond and Dunaway’s character, Evelyn, would have lots to talk about over coffee and pumpkin bread.

  My initial reaction was stunned silence. Then I just couldn’t help it; I laughed like a lunatic for a full minute. Poole patiently waited me out.

  When I could speak again, wiping away tears, I blurted out: “His sister?”

  Poole said, “Technically his half-sister.”

  I carried my phone over to the room’s minibar and retrieved a Diet Pepsi. “Okay, give me the rosters so I know who plays for what team.”

  She referred to her notes. “Niall’s father, the twins’ grandfather, was James Ormond, a self-made millionaire. He started work as a teenager in the coal mines in the East, then worked his way up to managing the company, then eventually struck out on his own, moved to Wyoming, got married, and started his own coal business. By the time he was 50 he was one of the richest and most powerful men in the state. Niall was born when James Ormond was 41.

  “Then, just two years later, James fathered a girl through a relationship with a young clerk in the Wyoming state house. Her last name was Croft. There was a lot of hush money paid to keep the whole affair and resulting birth quiet, and the young Ms. Croft was well compensated for raising her daughter, little Julianne, out of the public eye. For years nobody knew that James was the father. Our agent believes it was definitely a carrot-and-stick scenario.”

  “Play ball and you’ll be taken care of,” I said. “Speak up and we’ll ruin you.”

  “That’s essentially correct.”

  This was more sickening and scandalous than anything I’d seen in Us Weekly. “Okay, Poole. What happens next?”

  “Niall discovers that he has a half-sister when he’s 21 and Julianne is 19. It’s not even a minor scandal, however, because all the players were either out of the spotlight or dead. James was semi-retired and Niall was away at college. James’s wife, Niall’s mother, had passed away, and so had Julianne’s mother, Ms. Croft. So there was no drama in that respect.”

  “How did Niall find out?”

  Poole looked at more of her notes. “We don’t know for sure. But speculation is that, when her mother was dying at such a young age, Julianne demanded the name of her biological father. It may have been a deathbed confession. Anyway, rather than contact James, it seems as if Julianne reached out to her half-brother. They’d met a few times, growing up in the same town, crossing paths as teenagers, although they weren’t close friends.

  “Now, however, Niall flew home to confront his father, who, we believe, broke down and admitted it was true. The two had a falling out, which is why Niall didn’t inherit his father’s coal company and chose to go off on his own.”

  “Okay, I’m following along so far. He’s mad at his father and gets even by starting a competing energy company. That’s wonderful, but I want the real mud, Poole. Gimme the good stuff. The stuff where they end up producing offspring together.”

  She got that sewage-smell look on her face again. “I suppose through natural curiosity Niall and Julianne began to meet to just talk. Both had been raised as an only child, and they found they had a lot in common. After some time an attraction grew and they began a more, um, intimate relationship.”

  I stood up and returned to the window. “And they kept everything secret.”

  “Yes. There was never a formal ceremony, but Julianne had her last name legally changed to Ormond to play the role of wife. She and Niall had one child who died at birth, and then four years later the twins.”

  I finished the Diet Pepsi and thought about the whole story. This explained an awful lot about the mystery surrounding the family dynamic. Julianne Ormond was raised as a secret, and once she and her half-brother got freaky she was probably resigned to a continued existence behind the curtain. It’s why we never had any information about her, and few photographs to speak of. Some assumed she was simply shy and detested the limelight.

  In truth, she was kept hidden away, a gilded sentence, moving from mansion to mansion, enjoying everything a wealthy life could provide except a social connection with the outside world. The stigma of incest, deserved or not, would’ve prevented Niall from building his company the way he wanted. He probably feared that investors would quietly drift away if they knew the story.

  After my initial laugh, mostly from the unexpected nature of it all, I considered
everything from an ethical standpoint. Yes, they were blood-related, but hadn’t been raised together. They met as adults and fell in love. Or at least in lust. I understood that many people would treat this as a horrible sin, while others wouldn’t judge at all. I couldn’t take the time or energy to make a personal ruling, and, honestly, I didn’t care. I suppose society’s stance on the issue would be divided, like every other moral and ethical issue on the table.

  With this information, though, lots of things tumbled into place. It’s possible the inbred-twins had a genetic excuse for their antisocial behavior. I’m no scientist, but I know inbreeding increases the possibility of health problems, both physical and mental, even schizophrenia.

  And then there’s the psychological impact of it all on Lucas and Gillian. Their parents were half-siblings, which society, right or wrong, treated with contempt. This couldn’t have been lost on the kids. Their mother was kept tucked into the shadows, perhaps to prevent embarrassment for the father who wanted to build an empire. The less she appeared in public and the fewer interactions she had with the press, the fewer chances someone would dig enough to make the connection.

  With the death of Niall Ormond, the twins were thrust into the role of standard-bearers for the company, and no doubt became ultra-sensitive to the potentially-negative backlash created by their parentage. No wonder they were so weird when I met them. Lucas tried to deflect everything with phony smiles and laughter, while Gillian made no effort to hide her angry, defensive attitude. She’d probably gone her entire life anticipating the revulsion and slurs from the public. Her hide had to be uncommonly thick.

  It was all too much to think about for long. But damn, it explained a lot.

  “Poole,” I said, “this is great stuff. Thank the research division for me, okay?”