Then it dinged again and again and again. Her face lit up as she grabbed it, staring at the screen. “I’ve got a signal,” she shouted.
The phone kept making noise, notification after notification. She turned to Peter in wonder, a grin growing on her face. “Holy shit. Holy fucking shit!”
Then her phone rang. She hit a button and Kitzinger’s voice came out of the tiny speaker. “Where the hell have you people been? The president’s declared a national emergency. The Homeland guys are getting very worked up.”
Ahead, there was a break in the clouds. Pale blue sky shone through. Maybe the storm had rained itself out for a few days. June was crying softly. Peter’s vision was suddenly blurry and he had to hit the brakes and pull over. His voice box was tight; he couldn’t get the words out. Finally he took a deep breath and cleared his throat. “We’re coming up on North Bend. Where do you want to meet?”
64
The lights were on in downtown Seattle.
Lewis had no desire to talk with the authorities, so Peter dropped him off at the King Street transit station, then drove to the SPD’s West Precinct with June at his side.
Because of the national emergency, nonessential workers were asked to stay off the roads. Traffic was almost nonexistent. But Belltown cafés and restaurants were open, and clumps of locals stood talking on the sidewalks, raincoats unzipped, lattes in hand.
Kitzinger was waiting outside the precinct’s main entrance with two hard-eyed guys in crew cuts and cheap suits. The FBI had wanted to meet at their office, and Homeland at theirs, but Kitzinger had suggested SPD turf as a kind of neutral ground, and Peter had agreed. He liked local cops and he liked Kitzinger, too. She’d never stopped looking into KT’s murder, and he knew she’d keep digging until she found everything there was to find.
Peter and June got out and shook Kitzinger’s hand, then popped the rear hatch. “We brought you a couple of presents.”
The hard-eyed men stared down at the prisoners swaddled in duct tape. Kitzinger said, “Who’s the kid?”
“He flew the drones that blew the first circuit breakers.” Peter reached in and thumped Hollis on the chest with his knuckles. “I’m pretty sure this asshole is the Messenger’s right-hand man.”
Kitzinger grinned. “I bet he’s got stories to tell.”
“What’s the latest with the power outage?” June asked.
Kitzinger said, “Thanks to your friend Faraday’s call to Homeland and your call to me yesterday, the utility companies managed to isolate most of the local grids to keep the blackout from spreading. Also, SPD techs found a hidden partition on Geoffrey Reed’s hard drive. His code was there, along with his notes. He couldn’t resist documenting his hack. That, along with the coordinates and pictures of those maps you sent, helped the geniuses reverse engineer the entire thing. Homeland commandeered a few spare transformers, so power should be back on in Eastern Washington in a few days. The National Guard is mobilizing with relief supplies and generators.”
“What about the Messenger’s connections across the country, across the world,” Peter asked. “Did anyone take down the grid anywhere else?”
“Some groups managed to kill substations in a dozen states, but Homeland did a pretty good job of mobilizing local law enforcement,” Kitzinger said. “That seemed to limit the damage. A few isolated incidents internationally, but not many.”
“And the Messenger’s compound?”
Kitzinger gave them a toothy grin. “SWAT teams went in two hours ago. There wasn’t much resistance. Most people had already gone. But they didn’t think to destroy any records, so we’ll know who they are. If they really stoned people to death, they’ll be held responsible.”
“How about the Messenger? Did they get him?”
Kitzinger shook her head. “He wasn’t at the compound. Homeland found his name on a private plane manifest with a destination of Mexico City. Captain Durant paid for the charter, we assume he was also on the flight. A Mercedes SUV registered to Durant was found in airport parking. The FBI has already contacted the Mexican authorities. The plane is still in the air. We’ll have them in custody in a few hours.”
Peter looked down at Hollis. “How does it feel to know your pal the Messenger ran away when things went bad? And took Durant instead of you?” Peter shook his head. “I guess you weren’t important to him.” Under the duct tape, Hollis somehow looked like a child who’d just learned the truth about Santa Claus.
Kitzinger opened the precinct door and held it for them. “We should go in. The feds are about to wet their pants in there.”
Peter tossed the keys to the older of the hard-eyed guys, who plucked them out of the air. Both men climbed in the Tahoe and drove away without a word. Peter never saw the car, the men, or the prisoners again.
—
Peter and June spent four days being debriefed by Homeland and FBI agents, with Kitzinger as SPD liaison contributing the smarter questions. They spent their nights eating dinner with Ellie, Manny, Carlotta, and their girls, then retiring to a very nice hotel suite, where they made love in every room on every piece of furniture including the bathtub.
At mid-afternoon on the first day, there was a flurry of activity and everybody left the conference room. Kitzinger finally returned with a storm cloud on her face. “Somehow the fucking feds missed the Messenger. If he and Durant got on another plane or rented a car, it’s in a name we don’t know about.”
June looked at Peter, her eyebrows slightly raised, asking a question.In the many pages of the Messenger’s paperwork she’d gotten from the attorney Ann-Marie Wildman, she’d seen information about an apartment purchase in Rio de Janeiro.
Peter gave a very small shake of his head. June had given the feds all the paperwork. They’d screwed up Mexico City. If they couldn’t come up with the Rio condo information themselves, he didn’t trust their ability to find the Messenger there, either. Besides, when push came to shove, Peter still had unfinished business with the guy. Not to mention Durant.
On the afternoon of the fourth day, the lights were back on in Eastern Washington. The final death toll was twenty-seven. But only four people had died for reasons that could be directly linked to the power outage. Which seemed to Peter like some kind of miracle.
