“Shit, Crocker! Why didn’t you say something before?”
They left the case with the driver, who stayed with the vehicle as they walked into a brown brick building with the sign on the glass door that read NEVADA POWER COMPANY. Inside, a patently nervous official with a shaved head and strange-looking rectangular glasses invited them into his office.
In a pinched voice, he said, “We’ve completed a preliminary crisis report and concluded that whoever killed the lights last night did so by hacking into our supervisory control and data acquisition system.”
Crocker didn’t know what that entailed. Nor did he understand the two-page report the official handed them, which consisted mainly of computer code and terminology.
“Any idea who was behind the attack?” he asked.
The official squinted through his glasses. “In my line of work, we don’t use the word ‘attack.’ We call them incursions. Incursions are generally difficult to trace. Sometimes the people behind them are kids showing off and gaming the system. In other instances, they’re individuals or organization with more sinister motives.”
“Which category do you think this incursion falls into?” asked Crocker.
The official twitched and shrugged. “I’m a power official, not a criminal investigator. I assume you would know that answer better than me.”
Jeri yawned and covered her mouth. “Based on what we know now, none of the casinos were hit and nothing was stolen.”
“Then it’s possible the blackout was a prank,” the official said.
“Makes you wonder about the guys who ran,” Crocker commented. “Wong and Petroc.”
Jeri stopped reading the report and looked at him over the top of her glasses. “What do you mean?”
“Makes me wonder if the whole thing was planned-the blackout to cover their escape, the helicopter to meet them in the desert.” Turning to the NPC official he asked, “How often do blackouts like this happen?”
“In my eighteen years at the NPC, we’ve had a handful of minor incursions, but never one that shut down the entire system,” the official answered.
Outside, as they prepared to climb into the SUV, Jeri turned to Crocker and said, “We knew we were looking at a counterfeiting operation that included Wong and Petroc. You think the blackout was part of it, too?”
“That’s what my gut tells me.”
“You’re smarter than you look, honey,” she said, scrunching up her face in thought. “I’ll check with DC.”
Dawkins had consumed half a bottle of silky, dry Clos Fourtet 2012 and enjoyed a dinner of hanger steak with Bordelaise sauce. He even had ice cream and espresso for dessert. But the hospitality ended as the jet started its descent. That’s when the sunglassed guard roughly tied a blindfold over his eyes and handcuffed his wrists in front of him. There were no further explanations from Miss Wa. No announcements from the pilot. No further warnings or instructions.
The plane banked sharply and bounced, then touched down gently, braked, and taxied to a stop.
His stomach was in his throat now, and he felt more anxious and alone than at any time in his life. Worse than when he’d gotten lost in the foothills of the Adirondacks while camping with his father. At least then, he knew he was in the United States. Now he was almost certain he wasn’t.
“This way, Mr. Dawkins,” Miss Wa instructed.
The guard pulled him upright and wrapped some kind of parka around his shoulders. The air outside was cold and smelled of jet fuel and agriculture. People around him murmured in an Asian language: Chinese? Mongolian? Korean? He couldn’t tell.
The warm room he entered smelled of rubbing alcohol. Someone checked his blood pressure. Then he felt a cold stethoscope on his chest and back.
“Is this necessary?” he asked.
No one answered.
Fear tingled upward from the base of his spine. Now he was on a bus, thinking about the trip Nan and he had made to Beijing eight and half years ago to meet their adopted daughter. At two months of age she had been placed on the steps of a bank in southern China, clad in a pink dress and wrapped in a blanket. On what the adoption agency called Gotcha Day, he was the first to hold her. The connection he made with Chun, who they renamed Karen, was powerful and immediate. He couldn’t remember feeling happier. Now he missed her. He also remembered his older sister, who he hadn’t spoken to in months. As kids they’d played doctor, until their mother caught them partially naked one day in the bathroom of their house in Colorado.
After a four-hour bus ride he boarded a boat. The farther he traveled, the more helpless he felt. He and Nan had been married for fifteen years now. She was his rock. All he wanted was to return home and be with his family. He told himself that he would do whatever he had to in order to make that possible. He had never thought of himself as brave, but so far he had surprised himself. Despite the fear and uncertainty, he was holding it together.
The boat docked, and he was helped off and led down a path to a concrete entrance of some kind and then an elevator. The elevator descended slowly.
He heard the shuffle of shoes against a concrete floor. He smelled mildew. A door creaked open and he was led into a room and pushed into a chair. Someone removed the handcuffs and blindfold.
He blinked into the harsh fluorescent light. The walls were painted a dull shade of green. Across from him was a metal bed covered with an olive-green blanket. A young Asian woman moved in front him wearing a white shirt and baggy black pants worn high. She bent at the waist and peered at him through wire-rimmed glasses like she was studying a strange creature in a zoo.
“Welcome, Mr. Dawkin,” she said in heavily accented English. “My name is Sung. I am your assistant. I happy to meet you. It is my pleasure. Would you desire tea?”
He tried to conceal the feeling of hopelessness that was descending over him. “No, not now,” he said with a tight smile. “But thank you for the offer.” It felt like three times gravity was pushing down on every part of his body.
He could barely keep his eyes open and focused. A guard stood at the door like a statue, dressed in a baggy camouflage uniform and cap. Everything felt cold and strange.
“Would you like soda and crackers?”
He struggled to get the words out. “No thanks.”
“You looked tired, Mr. Dawkin, so I let you rest. If you need anything, push white button on wall. I…come.” She pulled the blanket back and beckoned him to the bed as if dealing with a child. He sensed humanity in her gesture. Shivering, he crossed the cold concrete floor.
He lay down with his clothes on, heard the door lock behind her, and fell asleep.
Chapter Nine
Character is destiny.
– Heraclitus
The pilot of the Blackhawk had a Steelers logo tattooed on the back of his neck. Crocker was tempted to tell him about the time two well-known Steelers defensive players showed up at his house in Virginia to work out with him. Within an hour he was just getting warmed up and both of them were puking on his front lawn. But what would be the point? He didn’t want to appear to be a braggart, and it wouldn’t be smart to distract the pilot, especially when they were closing in on their target, a North Korean container ship named the Cong Son Gang. So he dry-checked the HK416 in his lap and kept his mouth shut.
Back in DC, Jeri had started to assemble the pieces of an international conspiracy that involved counterfeit money, illegal arms shipments, and narcotics, possibly originating in China, North Korea, or Iran. Now he was chasing a North Korean ship suspected of playing a role in it. The evidence was sketchy-captured text messages about “valued goods” to an Iranian official in Singapore from a phone linked to Wong and Petroc.
Nevertheless, Crocker was back in the fray and grateful that the hearing in Fairfax County had been pushed back. Two days ago he learned that Captain Sutter had written a letter to the judge explaining the important role Crocker played in protecting the country’s national security and asking that the charges against him be dropped. Hopefully, he wouldn’t have to worry about it again.