The Grid (9 page)

- CHAPTER NINETEEN -

The ridge above the substation, the sniper’s perch, was part of a farm owned by a man named Thompson.

Whitney parked under a live oak tree that was in front of a one-story wood-framed house. The home was old but freshly painted, white with navy-blue trim. An ancient AC unit the size of a small refrigerator hung out of the front window.

Thompson was sitting on the steps leading to the porch. He was drinking a can of Keystone Light, wearing a pair of overalls and a faded denim work shirt. His skin was creased and leathery from the sun, age hard to determine, sixtyish or older.

Whitney, Price, and I exited the black Suburban. Because I was the county sheriff, I was designated as our spokesman.

“Howdy, Mr. Thompson,” I said. “How’re you doing today?”

He spat in the dirt.

“You get much rain this summer?” I took off my hat, fanned myself.

No reply. Just a deadpan stare and a long pull of beer.

Whitney sighed loudly. Price shushed her.

“Heard you had a little excitement this morning,” I said.

He didn’t speak. Instead he stared at Whitney like she was from Neptune.

“We’re gonna go up yonder.” I pointed to the ridge. “Have a look around.”

Thompson crushed his beer can. “Don’t suppose there’s nothing I can do to stop you.”

A moment of silence.

“No. Afraid not.” I shook my head.

This was hard country—the loamy steppes of Texas, an area romanticized as the birthplace of the rugged individual, a lone pioneer braving the elements and standing on his own two feet. People here valued their privacy and didn’t much like the government nosing around. Unless there was a farm subsidy check involved.

He stood, turned his back to us, and walked inside. The screen door slammed shut.

“I thought people in the South were friendly,” Whitney said.

“We’re not in the South,” Price said. “We’re in Texas.”

The three of us climbed back in the Suburban and headed toward the ridge. Whitney drove down a dirt road lined with hackberry trees, past a barn gray with age and a pen with several swayback horses.

A few moments later, we parked by a stock tank at the foot of a small hill where two vans were idling. Yellow crime-scene tape encircled the entire ridge.

A man in a sweat-stained T-shirt and black fatigue pants got out of one of the vans. He carried a clipboard, an FBI badge dangling from a chain around his neck. We hopped out of the Suburban and met him halfway between the vehicles.

“About time,” the man said. “It’s hot as fuck out here.”

A vein in Whitney Holbrook’s neck pulsed.

“I think you need to canvass the entire farm,” she said. “Inch by inch. Today.”

The agent swore.

I looked at Whitney. “Give it a rest. Everybody gets that you’re Alpha Woman.”

She glared at me.

“Walk us through it.” I spoke to the agent. “One step at a time.”

He shook his head slowly and then gave us the rundown, starting with the dirt track where we were all standing.

“A gray Chevrolet pickup came through here about 9:00
A.M.
”
He pointed to a set of tracks in the dirt. “Farmer Thompson leases the back pasture to a neighbor for his cattle. He thought that’s who it was.”

“You checked the neighbor, right?” I asked.

The agent nodded. “He hasn’t been here in a wee—”

Price interrupted. “Did you take plaster molds?”

The agent looked at me, one eyebrow arched, the unspoken question:
Who the hell is the doofus in the fancy clothes?

“He’s head of security for Sudamento,” I said. “Ignore him. You’re talking to me.”

Whitney nodded approvingly.

“Yes, we took casts,” the agent said. “Won’t have anything from those until tomorrow.”

The agent then explained they were in the process of contacting all the businesses within a five-mile radius to see if any had video-monitoring systems. If so, they would get the footage and look for all Chevy trucks, hoping to get a glimpse of the occupants.

I did a rough calculation in my head and figured there were zero businesses within five miles other than the power plant.

The agent motioned toward the top of the hill and looked at Whitney. “Ladies first.”

She took a sharp intake of air but didn’t speak. Instead she began hiking up a narrow path dotted with cow manure, her heels sinking in the dirt. Ninety seconds later, the four of us were at the top, sweating like we’d run a marathon.

“Two sets of footprints,” the agent said. “Work boots like you’d buy at Walmart. Size ten and eleven. Eight spent cartridges. Remington, thirty-thirties. You can get those at Walmart, too, or any sporting goods store.”

At the base of a mesquite tree, the brown grass was stained burgundy. Ants swarmed the discoloration.

“That’s where Thompson found the wounded guy,” the agent said. “He was the size ten.”

“And Thompson calls 911.” I looked at Whitney. “A call which should have ended up with my people.”

No one said anything for a few moments.

Whitney spoke to Price. “Go wait in the car.”

“What?” His eyes went wide.

“This is a crime scene,” she said. “Law enforcement only.”

Price turned to me. “Can you believe this shit?”

I shrugged.

“Un-fucking-believable.” He shook his head. After a moment, he marched down the hill. When he was out of earshot, Whitney said, “Thompson’s call to your dispatcher was intercepted. Happened right after Black Valley went dark. So we sent our own people in.”

“Intercepted” was a polite way of saying that the NSA, who eavesdropped on about half of all electronic communications on the planet, heard Thompson’s call.

I knelt by the bloody grass, tried to imagine what had occurred here a few hours earlier.

“We figure Size Eleven shot him,” the agent said. “Then he took off in the Chevy.”

I looked at the substation in the distance. The transformers were an easy target.

“A Chinese guy with the Koran in his pocket.” I stood. “Almost like they wanted us to go straight for the Muslim-boogeyman angle.”

Whitney nodded. “They succeeded.”

- CHAPTER TWENTY -

Dylan is awake now, eating dinner.

Her favorites—hot dogs, mac and cheese—specially prepared by the hospital’s kitchen.

Sarah cuts the hot dog into bite-sized pieces while her husband paces in the suite’s living area, a cell phone pressed to his ear. As usual, a business crisis of some sort is brewing.

Dylan has stopped asking about going home after Sarah told her she could stay up past her bedtime and watch anything she wanted on TV.

The meal finished, Dylan flips on the television and is soon engrossed in an episode of
The Simpsons
, much too old for her, but Sarah has made a promise and won’t go back on her word.

Walden is in the hallway outside the suite, briefing the men who will be there through the night. Rosa, the nanny, sits in the corner of the bedroom, a rosary in one hand. She has spoken very little since Sarah came back from changing clothes.

Sarah moves the dinner tray to the other side of the room near where the nanny is rubbing her fingers over the beads.

“I will stay with the child tonight,” Rosa says, not looking up from her rosary.

“That’s not necessary,” Sarah says.

“Then who shall be with her?”

Sarah doesn’t reply. She loves Dylan, of course. But both Sarah and the nanny understand that mothering is not part of Sarah’s makeup.

The crying and the thousands of tiny traumas that form the bulk of a young child’s existence—the neediness—all those pieces of a parent’s life leave Sarah petrified, staring blank faced at her daughter, confused as to how to proceed, how to react.

“You were late coming back,” Rosa says. “She asked about you.”

Sarah doesn’t speak. Lately, the nanny has been figuring out the discrepancies in her employer’s schedule, chunks of time unaccounted for.

“That security man,” Rosa says. “He won’t look you in the eye.”

“I’ll stay with Dylan tonight.” Sarah crosses her arms. “You can go home.”

In the living area, her husband’s voice raises and then lowers. Something about a lawsuit and a hostile takeover. How he’ll be back in New York in a day or two.

“A child shouldn’t be alone,” Rosa says. “Not in a place like this.”

“Perhaps both of us should stay,” Sarah says.

“With the security man as well?” A faint smile on Rosa’s face.

Sarah clenches her fists, struggles to control her anger. “Why do you say these things to me? Do you want to be fired?”

Rosa chuckles softly. “If I go away, then who will take care of your daughter?”

Checkmate. Sarah has longed to terminate the insolent nanny’s employment. But if she did so, she would have to find a replacement—an arduous, time-consuming process. Plus, Dylan adores Rosa, and getting a new caregiver would cause untold heartache and drama for the child.

Sarah grabs her purse, a slim Hermès. “I’m going to take a walk, clear my head.”

Rosa stares at her beads but doesn’t speak. Dylan is still engrossed in the TV.

“I’ll be back . . . in a while.” Sarah marches out of the suite. She ignores her husband, who is tapping on his tablet computer, oblivious to her movements.

In the hall, Walden is at the nurses’ station with two other security men. He’s wearing a sport coat to cover the pistol on his hip.

He breaks away, approaches Sarah as she stands by the elevator.

“Are you going somewhere?” he asks. “Do you need a ride?”

He’s just doing his job, but the questions grate on Sarah’s nerves.

An hour ago, Walden had been naked on top of her, pounding away. The thought makes her stomach churn. What kind of person is she that she would find comfort in an encounter with a man like Walden?

The doors slide open.

“Stay with Dylan.” Sarah steps onto the elevator.

The doors hiss shut.

A few moments later, she is outside in front of the hospital.

It’s early evening and the traffic is thick on Gaston Avenue. The air smells of exhaust and cigarettes, the latter from a sitting area where the smokers have congregated a few hundred feet from the entrance to the hospital.

Sarah heads to the smokers.

There are about ten of them, half in pajamas and wheelchairs, the other half wearing hospital scrubs.

Sarah hasn’t had a cigarette in two years, ever since she chaired that stupid cancer fund-raiser at Southfork Ranch. She asks a man in his twenties, an orderly, if she can bum a smoke.

The orderly, the youngest, most attractive man among those gathered, takes a long look at her. The Prada pumps, the skinny jeans, the creamy silk top open to display a healthy amount of cleavage.

He gives her a Marlboro, flicks a match.

Sarah draws in a lungful of smoke. The nicotine jets straight to her brain, giving her an instant head rush as everything turns rosy and warm. She thanks the man and stares off into the distance, letting her mind drift to an empty, serene place, courtesy of the tobacco.

It takes a few seconds to realize what she’s looking at: the 7-Eleven where she ditched the stolen Monte Carlo.

Two Dallas police cars are parked at an angle behind the elderly Chevy. An officer stands by the driver’s door, peering through the glass.

She wonders if the car has been reported stolen. She supposes she should feel some amount of fear, but between being back in Dallas on her own turf, and the mental glow provided by the cigarette, she doesn’t much care. She is SarahSmiles, stickup artist extraordinaire, granddaughter of a man who started his fortune with nothing more than a gun and a hunger for success.

Sarah closes her eyes and wonders if the old man would be proud of her.

Movement in front of her, feet shuffling.

She opens her eyes and sees her grandfather standing there.

He is tall and thin. His eyes are like slate—gray and hard, unyielding. Handsome with a long nose, high cheekbones, and a thick head of wavy black hair.

“Hello, Sarah.”

She gulps, drops the cigarette.

It is not her grandfather of course. It’s her brother.

Nothing good can come from Elias showing up unannounced. He is trouble, and Sarah’s got a full tank of that particular commodity at the moment.

“There’s a joint across the street,” he says. “Let’s get a drink, catch up.”

“How did you know where I’d be?”

“I know everything, Sarah.” He chuckles and strokes her cheek, his tone gentle.

She recoils from his touch.

“Don’t be that way,” he says. “We’re family, after all.”

She stares at him for a moment and then nods, relenting as she always does.

He smiles, a look of supreme confidence on his face.

Together they zigzag through the traffic, heading to a tavern with neon beer signs in the window and a parking lot full of Harleys.

The place looks dangerous, the kind of bar where there might be a dice game in the back or a guy in a corner booth selling weed.

The kind of place where both Sarah and Elias feel at home.

- CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE -

As we headed back to the power plant from Thompson’s farm, a call came in on Whitney Holbrook’s phone. She listened for a long time, driving slowly down the two-lane highway.

She hung up, turned onto the gravel road leading toward the boilers, and said, “The Chinese guy’s dead. We have a name, though. Got a hit off the fingerprints.”

I was in the front passenger seat, Price in the back. He leaned forward.

“Jimmy Wong,” she said. “Street name: Jimmy the Weasel.”

“I’m guessing that Jimmy wasn’t a Chinese national,” I said.

She nodded. “You are correct. Mr. Wong was born in Galveston in 1978. His most recent address was the Texas Department of Corrections.”

“A local boy,” Price said. “So he was recruited in the joint? A Nation of Islam convert?”

“I wouldn’t bet on that angle,” I said. “The only people Louis Farrakhan hates more than whitey are Asians.”

Whitney parked in front of the office. “He was serving a five-year sentence for armed robbery. Running concurrently with an assault-and-battery conviction.”

No one spoke for a moment.

“Jimmy beat up a hooker with a shovel,” Whitney said. “Put her eye out.”

“Anything on known associates?” I asked. “That’s the best starting place.”

A guy named Jimmy the Weasel who gave smackdowns to working girls sounded like a street thug, not a radicalized fanatic. The people he ran with when he was on the outside would be a good indicator of what kind of hood he actually was.

“They have to pull his file by hand,” Whitney said. “The power outage, all the servers haven’t come back up yet.”

The sun was setting. The clouds on the horizon were thin, streaked by the fading light to the color of rust.

While we’d been gone, the activity level at the plant had increased significantly.

Sudamento pickups and utility trucks were everywhere. Men in hard hats and orange vests swarmed around the two towers like safety-minded cockroaches.

The black Suburbans and my county squad car seemed out of place.

Price’s phone dinged, a text message. He read the screen and said, “They had to shut down both boilers. The transformers are fried. Nowhere for the juice to go.”

“What about the other Sudamento plants?” I said.

He continued reading. “They’ll be back online tomorrow. Black Valley is out of commission for at least thirty days.”

A man wearing a short-sleeve dress shirt and carrying a clipboard came out of the office. He stood on the front steps and surveyed the scene.

“That’s the plant manager. I gotta go.” Price jumped out of the SUV, slammed the door.

Whitney and I sat in silence. She turned the blower on the AC down a notch; it was getting chilly.

“I’ll need a badge,” I said.

She opened the console, handed me a slim leather wallet.

“That was quick.” I flipped the wallet open. One side was my Texas driver’s license picture laminated on an ID card, which read,
F
EDERAL
E
NERGY
R
EGULATORY
C
OMMISSION—
D
IVISION OF
I
NVESTIGATIONS
. The other side was a gold shield.

“I plan to keep investigating the murder of my deputy, too. That’s nonnegotiable.”

A fellow law-enforcement officer had been murdered. Even though he appeared to be crooked, the killing still had to be solved, those responsible brought to justice. Every cop on the planet could understand that.

After a moment, she nodded.

“How many other attacks have there been?” I asked.

“This is the second incident. The first where there was an outage, however.”

“Were they both Sudamento facilities?”

She nodded.

“I’ll need a vehicle and a list of the company’s plants.”

“There’s a Suburban just like this one at your office now,” she said. “I’ll e-mail you a list later tonight as soon as I get back to my motel.”

I got out of the passenger side and stood in the doorway, looking back at her.

“This doesn’t feel like an Islamic terrorist operation to me,” I said. “What’s your take?”

“Shut the door, Cantrell. You’re letting the cold air out.”

An hour later, I was sitting in the same booth in the same diner where I’d had breakfast with Jerry that morning.

It was dark now. I was the only customer. The electricity was back on, thankfully, and the room felt cold enough to chill beer.

I was having the daily special—meat loaf with mushroom gravy, fresh green beans, mashed potatoes—and reading a series of e-mails from the Texas Rangers regarding the investigation into the murder of my deputy.

The Rangers had been busy but had little to show for their initial efforts.

A video camera at a service station across the highway had a two-second sliver of footage that showed the LaCrosse getting on the northbound lanes of the interstate.

The fake address the woman had given the hotel clerk was to the south, in Austin.

I kept reading. A canvass of the hotel guests had yielded nothing. The crime-scene investigators had recovered a lot of DNA evidence, though the material would take time to process.

I looked up from my phone and glanced outside as a black Suburban pulled up next to my squad car. The driver’s door opened and Whitney Holbrook got out. She stared at my vehicle for a few moments before entering the diner.

The waitress seated her in the booth next to mine so that we were facing each other. Whitney ordered a salad with chicken and an ice water. Then she looked over at me and said, “This is the only place to eat in town.”

I didn’t reply.

“Not counting Dairy Queen,” she said. “Which is where my crew decided to go tonight.”

“Where’s Price?”

She didn’t reply, just gave me an irritated look.

The waitress brought her a glass of water and silverware.

After she left, Whitney said to me, “How do you live somewhere so small?”

“Texas?”

She rolled her eyes.

“It’s quiet around here,” I said. “People keep to themselves.”

“Parts of Manhattan are like that, too. But you can still get Thai takeout at 4:00
A.M.
”

I shrugged, continued to eat and read e-mails.

The waitress brought Whitney’s salad.

I pointed to the empty side of my booth. “You want to join me?”

After a moment’s hesitation, she picked up her plate and slid in across from me.

“This afternoon.” She stabbed a chunk of lettuce. “I never said thank you.”

“For what?”

“For taking the job.”

I shrugged again. “You’re welcome.”

We ate in silence for a few minutes.

Whitney said, “How’s the investigation of your deputy’s murder going?”

“Slow. Whoever killed him planned ahead. But there’s a lot of physical evidence at the scene, so we may get lucky that way.”

“Do you know about the stolen Monte Carlo?”

I stopped eating.

“After the attack on the power plant, we cast a wide net,” she said. “Any police reports, we wanted to see.”

“Keep talking.”

“A VFW hall about ten miles north of your murder scene. Two old boozehounds got into a fight. Apparently one of the drunks had his car stolen and was blaming the other one.”

“What’s that got to do with my murder?”

“One of the drunks said that a woman took the car.”

I put my fork down.

“Before you get too excited, remember it’s two wet brains who haven’t been sober in years. Police could hardly get a coherent word out of either of them.”

The waitress refilled our water glasses.

“The bartender,” Whitney said. “He had to confirm that Boozie Number One’s Monte Carlo was in fact missing. A 1978 model. Lime green.”

I pushed my plate aside.

She took a bite of her salad, chewed thoroughly, swallowed. “Boozie Two. He said he saw a woman in the car, and she was wearing a Dallas Cowboys hat.”

I stared out the window into the darkness, wondering how many women in Central Texas at any given time were running around wearing a Cowboys ball cap.

Whitney slid a piece of paper across the table. “Here’s the location of the VFW hall and the witness’s address.”

I looked at the paper. The place where the car had been stolen was on the highway. The drunk man’s location was in a small town thirty or so miles away.

“Why are you being so helpful?”

“A cop got killed,” she said. “I want to see whoever is responsible nailed just as much as you do.”

I nodded but didn’t speak. Some things are universal, such as the desire for justice when one of your own is harmed.

“I wouldn’t count on doing an interview tonight,” she said. “They field-tested him. Old guy blew a point two four.”

I put the paper in my pocket and figured tomorrow around noon would be a good time to drop in. The waitress came by, asked if we wanted dessert. We both declined.

“My room won’t be ready until tomorrow.” Whitney dropped her napkin on her plate. “Something about a cockroach infestation.”

She told me the name of the motel, a rundown place where you might go to commit suicide or hook up with a waitress from Sizzler.

“Any other lodging options in the area?” she asked. “The joint where your deputy died is full tonight.”

Those were the only two places to stay in the county. I told her so, and she muttered under her breath.

“Where’s Price staying?” I asked.

“He got the last room at the cockroach Hilton. But I’d rather spend the night in the men’s room at the bus station than with him.”

There was something about Whitney Holbrook that made me imagine a sad and lonely childhood, a young girl fearful and timid, overcompensating as an adult. Both parents working, maybe, a child at home alone in a bad neighborhood in South Boston. She brought out my desire to protect, to shine a light into the darkness and say,
The bad guys aren’t out there. You’re safe.

Only that would be a lie and we would both know it.

I put some money on the table. “I’ve got a couch you’re welcome to. My place is not far from here.”

She didn’t reply, her expression that of someone watching events spiral out of control.

“I’m not hitting on you.”

“I know.” She nodded. “You’re not that way. I can tell.”

A few moments of silence ensued. She made no move to leave.

“Talk to you tomorrow then.” I slid out of the booth.

“You sure you don’t mind a houseguest?”

I shook my head.

Whitney stood. “Wait up. I’ll need to follow you.”