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  “Why the secrecy?”

  “You can answer that one yourself, Sheriff. Clean electricity, without having to mine, process, or ship coal. No need for nuclear energy. No need for foreign oil—eventually most of our ground transportation will run electrically. We’re working on electrically driven aircraft—prop jobs at first—but there are some good-looking technologies on the drawing boards that could break down water into hydrogen and oxygen in sufficient quantities to power rocket engines or ramjets. Homes heated electrically—no need for heating oil.”

  Osborne had heard some of the arguments before, but so far nothing was feasible at the scale Forester was talking about. “Assuming it works, a lot of people are going to be out of a job. Most of them ordinary working folks.”

  “It’s worse than that,” the president said. “The national economies of places like Saudi Arabia and some of the other OPEC countries will take a serious hit. Along with the Initiative—if it works, and there’s still no guarantee that it will—I’m proposing a global realignment of priorities. In the short term, while we still have oil in the ground, I’ll push for a ten-year program to develop new, non-energy uses for oil far beyond pharmaceuticals, fertilizers, plastics, carpets, clothes, sneakers, and dish soap. Did you know that aspirin is made from petrochemicals?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Better than burning it to power a billion cars, trucks, buses, ships, and airplanes.”

  No response was needed. But Osborne didn’t think that he’d been called to the White House to talk about making aspirin out of oil.

  “How soon will you be able to resume your work?” the president asked Whitney.

  “Ten days tops, if nothing else happens,” she said.

  “And how sure are you that it will work?”

  Whitney looked as if she hadn’t slept in a week, and Osborne felt sorry for her.

  “If you’d asked me that question last week, Mr. President, I would have told you one hundred percent. But now I’m not sure. The models all look good, and we’ve run a hyperbaric test on an actual piece of coal seam cut from a mine in West Virginia. Within minutes after we’d injected a small sample of our microbial mix and introduced a miniature quorum talker, we were getting methane. We ran the experiment three times with the same results.”

  “Where’s the problem?”

  “The scale. Leaks in the seam that could allow an escape of methane directly into the atmosphere. An underground fire or explosion. Or a dozen other possibilities that we haven’t thought of.”

  “Including another attack,” the president said. He turned to his FBI director. “No possibility that your people have made a mistake? Missed something?”

  “No, sir,” Edwin Rogers said. He was pleasant-looking man dressed this morning in a dark suit, white shirt, and plain tie. He could have been a banker or CEO of a corporation, not the nation’s top cop. “Definitely Posse Comitatus, except for Dr. Kemal. We’re working on the sixth person who presumably killed the two in the motor home then hid it in a box canyon south of the Initiative, but we’re coming up with only five sets of prints, matching the five bodies left behind.”

  “Sheriff?” the president prompted.

  “He planned it that way,” Osborne said. “Nothing or no one left behind.”

  “He?”

  “The Posse uses women for some of its operations, but almost always it’s a man who gives the orders.”

  “Any progress tracing the money?” the president asked Rogers.

  “The motor home itself was custom-built, at a cost of somewhere near half a million. The electronic gear was worth another two hundred thousand, possibly even more—most of it Chinese-made, but some Russian stuff, and at least one of the computer programs they used was based on the version of the Stuxnet worm the Israelis used to interfere with Iran’s nuclear program. Sophisticated stuff. We’re thinking that they had an international connection.”

  “A lot of it points back to SEBIN,” Walter Page, the CIA director, said. “Unfortunately most of what we’ve come up with is circumstantial, but it’s pretty tight. We’re also thinking that’s where the money came from, though we’re shaky on that part. We haven’t made any sort of a clear trace yet.”

  Osborne glanced at Cameron who’d apparently just had the same thought. “Excuse me, sir. You’re talking about SEBIN—Venezuela’s intelligence service—being involved with the attack?”

  Page nodded. “At this point that’s exactly what it’s beginning to look like.”

  “The Posse is a strictly homegrown terrorist organization. They’d never take orders from outsiders, so if the Venezuelans are footing the bill they have to be doing it through someone in the U.S.”

  “Any ideas?” Page asked.

  “A contractor company,” Cameron said. “Someone with field experience.”

  “We had the same thought,” Rogers said. “But so far we’ve come up with nothing solid.”

  “Pardon me, but Chávez can’t be crazy enough to try something like this,” Osborne said. “It would be an act of war.”

  The president nodded. “Wouldn’t be the first.”

  “We sent a special envoy down to Caracas,” Nicholas Fenniger said. He had curly gray hair and a serious demeanor reminiscent of Rahm Emanuel, who’d been President Obama’s chief of staff. “Wanted to talk some sense into their ministry of oil people, try to make a deal with the bastards. They were raising the price of crude by twenty-three percent—to us and no one else.”

  Osborne had seen something on the news. “He was killed in some kind of an accident.”

  “He was beheaded with a chain saw,” Fenniger said. “Chávez blamed it on terrorists.”

  “Message sent and received,” the president said. He was suddenly very angry.

  “Sorry, Mr. President, but this is way out of my league,” Osborne said. “I may own Billings County, as you say, but our population is probably smaller than the number of people working for you right here and in the Executive Office Building.”

  “I understand you, Sheriff, but understand me. Because of the size of your county already far too much attention is being paid to what we’re trying to do. The story that it’s nothing more than an ELF facility and that it was nothing but an accident won’t hold much longer unless we begin to withdraw the bulk of the armed Air Force personnel as soon as possible.”

  This took Osborne’s breath away. “It has to be kept secret at all costs for as long as possible?”

  “Something like that.”

  “If SEBIN knows, won’t the rest of OPEC know?”

  “It doesn’t seem to be the case so far,” the president said. “The Saudis aren’t pressuring us.”

  Whitney was caught up in the president’s idea. “In ten days we’ll know if it works on the scale we’re hoping for. After that we can be up and running in a super short time.”

  “Anything moves in your county that doesn’t belong, blow the whistle and you’ll get all the muscle you can use,” Rogers said.

  “But discreetly,” the president said. “Will you do that for me?”

  Osborne nodded, as he knew he would. “I’ll need an extra pair of eyes immediately.”

  “Anybody,” the president said.

  “She’s an investigative reporter with the Bismarck paper. She’s sharp, she’s local, she has connections, she already knows or has guessed most of what’s really going on, and she was right in the middle of the attack.”

  “Who is she?” the president asked.

  “I believe he’s talking about my daughter,” General Forester said.

  “Yes,” Osborne said. “And in the meantime I’ve been told there might be a leak of classified information, possibly at the facility.”

  “We’re taking care of it,” the president said.

  “If I have to watch my back I’ll need to know who it is.”

  “It’s no one out there, Sheriff,” the president said, his anger rising again. He glanced at Whitney. “And it’s especi
ally not Dr. Lipton or any of her staff.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Anything else?”

  No one said a thing, and the president got up. “Then let’s get back to work.”

  36

  IT WAS LATE, nearly one o’clock, and Egan, wearing a light shirt, his bra off, stood by the window looking toward the post office, a bank, and beyond it a church, the snow falling heavier now than it had earlier. All Midwest, prim and proper; places to pray, to stash your money, to send a postcard to your aunt Hattie in Nebraska and just downstairs a place to have a beer and a steak. But he would never fit in here, and now and then thoughts like that made him a little sad and made him realize just how bugshit crazy he was.

  Mattson had left around eleven thirty to snoop around the hotel and find out if the broad had come back or had gone to Bismarck for whatever reason, leaving Egan to his thoughts. Just like Dr. Kemal and the kid, Don would not leave the Badlands alive. Now that his part was nearly done he’d become excess baggage, not worth a damn if it came to a stand-up fight.

  Soon as Ashley Borden got back from wherever—the clerk had confirmed that she was gone when Don had booked them a room—they would grab her and head out. Operations like that were far easier than most people suspected.

  “Said the broad’s staying for Christmas. Practically told me the sheriff’s life story, said the two of them were meant for each other.”

  “Touching,” Egan had told him.

  “No, goddamnit, you have to listen to me. The son of a bitch is a war hero. Medal of Honor in Afghanistan, and the newspaper broad is his girlfriend.”

  “Then he’ll get a big kick out of what happens next.”

  They’d brought a bottle of whiskey up to their room, and Mattson had watched with a morbid fascination as Egan took off the bra and other padding that had rounded his figure.

  “She knows something’s wrong with you.”

  Egan grinned. “Good, it’ll make grabbing her all the more easy. Curiosity killed the cat.”

  “And then what?”

  Egan told him, and the newspaper reporter had almost lost his dinner.

  “You’re fucking out of your mind.”

  “You got it.”

  “But why?”

  “We’re sending a message to her daddy. Back off.”

  Mattson had taken a deep pull of the whiskey, turned the television to some Christmas special, and laid down fully clothed on the bed with the bottle. “I’m leaving in the morning. I’ll rent a car and tell them I have to get home, family emergency or some shit.”

  “You know what I said I was going to do to the reporter?” Egan had asked pleasantly.

  Mattson could only nod.

  “Try to leave before we’re finished here, and you can join her.”

  “I was just saying we watch ourselves.”

  “And lay off the booze, I want you to keep checking to see if she comes back. Because if she does we’ll go tonight, and I’ll want you sober.”

  * * *

  At one precisely, Egan’s encrypted Nokia phone burred softly. He’d called Kast earlier in the evening, and the Command Systems CEO had promised to call back with the requested intel.

  “Yes,” Egan answered.

  “Lots of activity, as we’d suspected. Didn’t have to use infrared.”

  Kast was talking about satellite images from space. Some of the better connected contractors were able to anonymously subscribe to a Department of Defense satellite surveillance system as one of the necessary perks that came with their government contracts. But in actual fact so much data was processed through thousands of government computers that no agency, not even a supercomputer dedicated to the task, could ever keep track of all the users. With the right passwords just about any computer could be hacked without the owner knowing about it.

  America was great, Egan thought, but it was a tough old world out there.

  “Any holes in the perimeter?”

  “Most of the action is down around the power station. The west side that parallels Highway 85 looks quiet.”

  “Are you watching it now?”

  “On my monitor.”

  “Any sign that the troops are pulling out or getting ready to go?”

  “No, are you expecting it?” Kast asked.

  “They’ll have to leave if they want to keep their little secrets. Around here just about everybody is convinced there was some sort of an accident out there, but it won’t be long before they’ll begin to wonder why the hell so many armed guards are hanging out.”

  “How do you know about the ground troops?”

  “It’s what I’d do,” Egan said. “They start moving out, let me know.”

  “When do you make the grab?”

  “Maybe tonight,” Egan said. “We’ve got a snowstorm coming our way. Just what the doctor ordered.” And he almost brayed like a mule, but held it back until he could break the connection, and even then he held a hand over his mouth.

  Someone came to the door, the old-fashioned lock grating, and Egan grabbed his silenced Glock 39 pistol from the light table and turned around. But it was just Mattson, who was excited and all out of breath, and he didn’t even notice the gun.

  “She’s here.”

  “Keep your voice down, goddamnit,” Egan said. “Borden?”

  “Yeah. She came in the bar while I was sitting there, and she didn’t leave until just a couple of minutes ago. But she’s staying here in the hotel.”

  “Did you manage to find out what room she’s in?”

  Mattson glanced at the connecting door. “You’re not going to believe this shit. But she’s right next door. Right fucking next to us.”

  Egan speed-dialed Toby’s number. The rodeo cowboy answered in the first ring as if he had been expecting the call. “Yo.”

  “It’s tonight. How fast can you get up to the rendezvous point?”

  “In this shit? Two hours, three tops.”

  It would be cutting it close, but Egan didn’t think that they could afford to wait until tomorrow night. “Start now.”

  “I’m on it.”

  “Will you be missed? Will someone call the cops?”

  “Nope.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Only the old man and woman, a stablehand, a cook, and one guest other than me.”

  “The broad you were with?”

  “Yeah. But it’s no sweat. They’re all dead.”

  37

  THE FBI’S GULFSTREAM VIP jet was passing to the north of Minneapolis, the weather worsening the farther west they flew. It was two thirty in the morning on the ground, one thirty in Medora, and although Cameron and Whitney were sleeping, Osborne had not been able to doze off. He kept feeling that he was missing something, had been missing something all along.

  From where he sat he could see nothing outside the window except for the black night punctuated by the aircraft’s running lights and strobe, absolutely no hint that they were just north of a major city.

  Ashley was safe in Bismarck, or at least he hoped she was, though he’d been shook up last night when she’d called from the Donna Marie gate. He had a fair idea why she had followed him there, and what she had wanted to say to him, and he didn’t know if he was ready. He had been divorced now longer than he had been married, and days, actually mostly nights, he harbored the thought that somehow the separation could be erased, and that he could have his family back.

  Impossible after all this time, of course; he knew that intellectually, yet he’d shied away from any woman he’d dated who wanted to take it to another level, make it serious. There weren’t many available bachelors in all of Billings County, or in the surrounding counties for that matter, so he’d always been high on the list.

  Miss Dottie had been on his case lately to get on with his life. Find someone nice and settle back down. “Just because you got your fingers burned once, doesn’t mean it’ll happen again.”

  “We’ll see.” Osborne had tried to hold her off,
but it hadn’t worked.

  “Nathan, you’re a war hero. Don’t be such a coward.”

  “Afghanistan was easy by comparison.”

  The flight attendant, a pleasant young woman in a khaki skirt and white blouse, who’d served them on the way out from Dickinson, came back. She was still smiling and looked fresh despite the late hour. “The captain would like to have a word with you, sir,” she told Osborne. “It’s the weather.”

  Osborne unbuckled and went forward to the flight deck. The pilot, a slightly built sandy-haired man whose name was Willis, looked over his shoulder. “Sorry to wake you, Sheriff, but it looks like we’re going to have to land at Fargo, in about a half hour. The weather’s closing in faster than we’d anticipated. Billings has already closed and they’re getting ready to shut Rapid City down.”

  “You don’t think we can make Dickinson?”

  “I think Bismarck would be calling it close, but Dickinson is definitely out.”

  “Bismarck it is,” Osborne said.

  “How important is it?”

  “Very,” Osborne said, his gut tight, his instincts on a high pitch.

  “We’ll contact Bismarck right now and make sure they keep one of their runways open for us,” Willis said. “After all we have a presidential mandate.”

  “Good man. Now, can I make a couple of phone calls?”

  “Sure. You can use the console in the backseat, starboard side.”

  Whitney was still asleep when Osborne went aft but Cameron was awake. “Trouble?”

  “It’s the weather. We’re not going to make Dickinson and even Bismarck is going to be dicey.”

  “Are we in a hurry? Not much for us to do until Donna Marie is back and running.”

  “Just a feeling,” Osborne said, and the plane lurched as if it had hit a pothole, nearly throwing him off his feet.

  “Strap in back there,” the attendant called to them. She had taken the jump seat and was buckling in.

  Osborne made it to the rear seat and buckled in as the plane hit another burst of turbulence, then another. They had just found the leading edge of the front.

  Cameron made it back and strapped in across the aisle. “Talk to me.”