“I’ll let our techs know,” Kitzinger said. “As for the power companies, we have a liaison at Homeland. I’ll call him next, tell him to wake up a bunch of his people and have them reach out to the power companies.”
“Faraday is supposed to call his contact at Homeland, too,” Peter said. “Hopefully a call from you will help speed things up.”
“Good,” she said. “I’ll also brief our night commander so his people can start calling the local sheriffs, see if they can’t get some deputies out to those substations. Can you send me those coordinates? And maybe pictures of those maps?”
June glanced at the list of numbers and started typing. “Working on it now.”
“One last thing,” Peter said. “Make sure you tell the sheriffs their deputies need to be careful. The bad guys have armor-piercing rounds.”
“Got it,” Kitzinger said. “You better get your ass to Seattle. Homeland will want to talk to you.”
“You bet. Thanks for this, Kitzinger. Gotta go.”
After Peter hung up, Lewis looked at him. “We ain’t going back to Seattle.”
“No,” Peter said. “We go forward until it’s finished, one way or another.” He plugged in the coordinates for the Grand Coulee Dam, then looked at the routes on his phone. “If we stay on blacktop, we have to backtrack west all the way to Ravensdale and North Bend. Five hours if we really haul ass. But if we take Forest Service gravel going east and cross at Stampede Pass, we can cut that time to three and a half, depending on conditions.”
It was November in the mountains. Lewis said, “Do we even know if it’s passable? The Forest Service doesn’t plow.”
“Forest Service website says the Stampede Pass Road is still open.Although this is dated a week ago.” Peter downloaded the map because he knew they’d lose cell service quickly once they hit the gravel.
“Good enough for me,” Lewis said. “Hold on.” He hit the brakes and cranked the wheel. The Tahoe’s tires screamed and the big vehicle slewed sideways on the wet pavement, ending up facing back the way they’d come. Even before they’d come to a stop, he stomped on the gas and they began to rocket toward the east.
—
They passed the turnoff to the compound, encountering no other vehicles. The pavement ended soon thereafter. Aside from their headlights, the darkness was complete. After a few minutes, they took the first left and began a gradual climb, black mountains looming close on both sides. There was maybe half an inch of fresh snow on the ground, but the gravel road had been recently graded and the Tahoe’s traction was still good. Lewis was going forty, then forty-five.
At the next turn, the road became steeper, evergreens leaning close overhead. On their right, Sunday Creek flowed inexorably down to the sea. On their left was a clear-cut power easement, the tall metal towers and high-voltage wires invisible in the darkness except for the flashing red warning lights at their tops. The snow fell thick and fast, deepening as they climbed.
Lewis slowed to thirty. “You guys see what I’m seeing?”
Peter leaned forward. In the headlights, twin tire tracks had slowly materialized in the snow. Until now, there hadn’t been enough snow to show tracks. A half hour from now, with all this accumulation, the tracks would be all but invisible. “Stop here.”
Lewis hit the brakes and Peter got out and knelt in the road, looking at the tread patterns and snow scatter and the amount of accumulation over the impressions. “They’re going uphill, too,” he said. “Two trucks, and not that long ago.”
Lewis was bent beside him, hands on his knees. “It’s got to be them, right?”
Peter got to his feet, brushing wet slop from his pant legs. The wind howled through the trees. “Who else is dumb enough to be up here in the middle of the night? Although why they’d take this route I have no idea.”
“Security precaution,” Lewis said. “In case their plan got blown open, nobody would look for them on this road. But it means we ain’t gaining on ’em.”
“Not yet,” Peter said. “I don’t suppose we have any tire chains.”
Lewis smiled. “In the back. Stopped just in case, after we learned where the compound was.”
“Better break ’em out,” Peter said. “It’s only going to get worse from here.”
They got the chains on and kept going. The road followed the power easement for a time, always uphill, crossing under the buzzing wires and back again, before turning away to the left and rising along the steep flank of a mountain. There were no guardrails. The evergreens seemed to glow in the headlights, their branches heavy and white. The snow grew deeper, then deeper still.
After another mile, the snow was faintly marked by bootprints where the men in the trucks had put on their own chains. A half-mile later, the road began to switchback up a precipitous slope. Rocks to one side, empty space to the other. June reached between the seats and gripped Peter’s hand hard. By now the snow was at least two feet deep, and deeper in the drifts. Lewis shifted into low and dropped his speed to twenty, chains rattling, keeping his wheels in the tracks of the vehicles ahead, letting them break the path for him. Peter tried not to look out the window at the red power pylon lights below. It was a long way down.
The switchbacks grew tighter and steeper. Lewis slowed to fifteen,then ten. The tires began to slip on the uphill turns. The trees closed in, swaying in the wind. Then, after one final switchback, the land opened up and the road straightened out, rising and falling and rising again. To the right, more red lights floating in midair, power pylons stepping toward the east.
“I think we’re at the pass,” Peter said. “After this, it’s five miles to the freeway and a hundred and seventy to the Grand Coulee Dam.”
Lewis shifted out of low and began to pick up speed.
60
