Second Guess (The Girl in the Box Book 39)

by Robert J. Crane

  “I understand, sir,” I said. “Tough to ID a perp when they're flying over at high speed on a...I don't even know what you'd call it. Makeshift trapeze, maybe.”

  “Exactly,” the president said. “But the moment we have confirmation they're in Texas, the FBI can step in. EPA is already on scene in North Dakota.” He drew a long breath. “This is going to be a news cycle for a few days. With the fires out, oil is spilling out onto the North Dakota soil. Until they get valves in place...” He sighed. “It was really going to be quite the catastrophe either way. Billowing fires polluting our air or oil spilling across the land. My base is going to have a field day.”

  I cringed. “I wouldn't want to be the one to have to deal with those political considerations...sir.”

  “No,” Gondry sighed, “and the election is only six months away, as my campaign manager is so fond of reminding me. If you could wrap this up...”

  “I promise I won't sandbag it, sir,” I said. “But these things generally take their own time.”

  “I understand,” the president said, but he sounded a little dispirited. “The advice I'm getting is make hay of this crisis. Not by taking any sort of swipe at you, you understand – but to stop the drilling, period.”

  “Sir,” I said, then felt the need to slap a hand over my mouth. “Sorry.”

  “Sorry...what?”

  “Was just about to give advice that's way above my pay grade. I'm sure you have it in hand.”

  I could almost imagine Gondry's furrowed brow over the phone. “By all means, Sienna. I'd like to hear your thoughts.”

  I took a deep breath. “I'm no expert. I'm sure I don't know what I'm talking about. I–”

  “All the same,” he said firmly, “you've saved my life. Speak.”

  “Okay, this is probably stupid,” I said. “And I get that, uh...that climate change is a serious topic,” I said, trying to tread lightly. “But if that's an issue you're interested in tackling, you'll only be able to do so as president. The North Dakota thing? I'm no expert, but I'm guessing the US just went from energy independent down to having to import oil again.”

  “I am assured by the Department of Energy that you are correct.”

  “So gas prices are going to spike,” I said. “Which they always do at the beginning of summer anyway, when people prepare to travel, take trips. That means food prices rise, because it costs more to get goods to market. That's a domino effect. People’s vacations are going to be more expensive now. Goods and services are going to be more expensive.”

  “I'm impressed at the amateur economics lesson you're giving me. I think I see where you're going with this, but please...go on.”

  “If you shut down all domestic drilling,” I said, “that crunch gets harder, and they're going to be more focused on the thing that's whacking them across the face rather than long-term environmental concerns. The average American is not going to be thinking about your bold stance as leadership. They're going to be thinking about how you just made their lives measurably worse. Which will not result in returning you to the White House in November.”

  The president was quiet for a long moment. “You're quite right, as usual, Sienna. This was useful to hear.”

  “I was probably out of line,” I said. “I'm sure you've already gotten this message.”

  The president was quiet for a moment. “Perhaps. There are two sides to every decision. I'm quite tuned in to the loudest voices on either side. But you've reminded me there are people out there – voters out there – who don't work for the oil industry or the environmental movement. People still reliant on oil on a day to day basis. People it would affect greatly.” He paused, and I felt like it was for solemnity. “You've given me something to think about. Thank you.”

  “You're welcome, sir,” I said. “I'll try and catch the bad guys. Bring this news cycle to a quick close.”

  “Much appreciated. And do be careful, Sienna.” I could imagine the smile, now. “You know how I worry.”

  I didn't, actually, and it caught me by surprise that he said that. But before I could react, I heard the familiar click that told me the conversation was over.

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  “Right through here,” Wodehouse said as we walked into the Texas DPS command center. About a thousand monitors were spread over the walls, tuned to all manner of surveillance cameras, news stations, and...hell, I thought I saw weather maps on one wall. She led us into a glass conference room off to one side of the command center, and a half dozen employees waited within, staring at maps on the long table and a screen that had a full-color satellite photo of the Houston area on it.

  “Ms. Nealon, I'm Gabriel Garcia,” said a tall, Hispanic man with a cowboy hat. “Texas Rangers.”

  “This is Mr. Treston,” I said, trying to defer quickly. “He's the boss of me.”

  Gabe grinned at Reed. “Oh, I know Mr. Treston. We've worked together before. I know the Coleman boys, too – how you holding up, Augustus?”

  “I'm getting by,” Augustus said, catching Gabe's hand and pulling him in for a hug. “You talked to Taneshia?”

  Gabe shook his head as they pulled apart. “We only work through you for meta emergencies. Seen a couple things she's done in Atlanta, though. Local hero.”

  “Yeah, she's doing all right,” Augustus said a little tightly. “Momma says she's the toast of the town. Still living next door, though.”

  “Jamal, how you doing, brother?” Gabe said, and he seized Jamal's hand and brought him in for a bro hug. Then he did the same to Reed, and suddenly I felt very much like I had missed the last several years. “You're not back on the juice, are you?” He nodded at the laptop in Jamal's hand.

  “Work to be done,” Jamal said, a little abashed.

  “Guess so,” Gabe said, and gestured us over to the map spread on the table, a black and white plat looking thing. “Need you to confirm a thing for us – this North Dakota business? The motive was eco-terrorism, right? With big oil as the target?”

  “Sure looks that way,” Reed said. “They burned a lot of wells, and there's a lot of oil spilling out even with the fires out.”

  “Okay, that crystallizes our thinking, narrows the focus some,” Gabe said, pointing at the map. “As you probably know, Texas is the heart of the oil and gas industry in the US. Lot of companies in that sector call Houston home. The feds passed on the tip about these perps' directional heading.” He tapped on Houston on the map. “The city has hundreds of oil-based targets. Refineries, company HQs, homes of executives...”

  “You're thinking assassination?” I asked, settling my sweaty palms on the table to peer at the map.

  Gabe shrugged. “Could be. If it's a political statement they're looking to make, that'd be one way to get the message across. But...” And here he cringed.

  “What?” Augustus asked.

  Gabe looked vaguely stricken. “There are so many oil refineries in Texas that if they're looking to do environmental damage...that'd be a real good way. This is a target-rich environment, and they've already proven they're willing to blitzkrieg. They can do a lot of damage in a short time. And unfortunately...” He pushed the cowboy hat up high on his head. “...There's no way to know what they're going to hit until they do it.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  Scout

  The Port of Houston was a sprawling thing, lasting for miles along both sides of a long ship channel. Scout stared at the murky brown waters, the warm, humid air causing her to break out into a sweat.

  “Extra guard forces out,” Isaac said. They were standing on a shore just outside the port's fences, looking in at the heavy machinery and backdrop of massive storage tanks. So much petroleum in there, waiting to be shipped in or out. “Big oil can smell us coming.”

  “We did burn an awful lot of their profits up there in NoDak,” AJ grinned.

  “Let's burn them all up,” Francine said with her familiar cackle.

  Scout felt that familiar wiggle in her belly. Her hear
t fluttered.

  “This is going to be messier than those oil wells,” Isaac said. He checked his phone, then powered it down. “Phones off, okay? I doubt they've ID'd us yet by these burners, but let's make sure to keep them off until we're at the next safe point, and only use them right before we're about to move. They need to be turned off the rest of the time.”

  “Yes sir!” Francine said with excess gusto, fiddling with her phone. “Whatever sacrifice it takes to cook these pigs, I'm all in favor of it.” Which was a funny thing for her to say, because Francine was a loud and proud vegan.

  Scout didn't bother to check her phone. She hadn't even turned it on since before Dakota. Besides, her hands ached from the ride down. “Should we take a little longer before we do this?” she asked, and shook out her grip.

  “AJ's the only one using his hands in this,” Isaac said, catching her eye. “You good, AJ?”

  “I'm good, bro,” AJ said, gripping that AK. “Time to spread my wings and fly, right?”

  “I've got a safe house in Kentucky,” Isaac said. “We'll head there right after this. Recoup, rest for a day or two, then get back after it.” He smiled. “Maybe we could even recruit a junior league team to sow some havoc elsewhere while we're working here. It'd be nice to have some backup, you know? Get a farm league going?”

  AJ hooted. “Join the cause, yeah! Get 'em off the couch, out of the damned coffee shops and the streets, and into the fight. That's what I'm talking about.”

  “Yeah, well, we'll need some time to parse the net,” Isaac said. “Let Francine do her thing, see what these people are all about. If we can bring in some newbies, we can expand our operations and do twice the damage to big oil.” He flashed them a grin. “Sound good?”

  “Sounds good to me,” Francine said, pocketing her phone. “We need to mobilize an army.”

  “An army fights on its morale,” Isaac said. “That means we need victories. North Dakota was a good strike, and you know why we did it first.”

  “Because it was easy,” AJ said.

  “Built confidence,” Isaac said in agreement. “Now it's time to up the complexity. What do we say?”

  “For the cause!” Francine coughed it up instantly.

  “For the cause,” AJ said, a second behind her.

  Isaac looked right at Scout. “You with us, dear?”

  Scout blinked. “Thought I said...sorry. For the cause.”

  “That's right,” Isaac said. “Let's go, and hope that today is not the day we make our sacrifice for the Earth. We're all dust in the long run, and the earth is the only thing that will survive us. It...must...survive us. Let's go.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  Sienna

  “So we sit and wait?” I asked, staring at the map table like a complete idiot. Feeling helpless was not one of my fortes. “What, like, Netflix and chill until something blows up?”

  “Whoa,” Augustus said, “who you Netflixing and chilling with here? And in public?”

  “I can actually watch Netflix with someone without it turning into sexy times,” I said. “It's really easy. You just watch whatever's on.”

  “If you know a way to find these people without a clue what they're going to hit,” Gabriel said, looking back down at the map, “I'm all ears. Otherwise...yeah, I think we're waiting.” He fiddled with his hat brim, knocking it back slightly.

  There was a sudden change in tenor out in the command center. I sensed it beyond the glass walls that hemmed us in to the conference room. “Something's happening,” I said, looking at a lady rush from one console to another, high heels clacking audibly even through the glass partition.

  “What?” Gabriel's head came up, and he knocked his cowboy hat back down to its proper position.

  I tried to listen beyond the glass, but it was muffled, and a clamor, too many people talking at once to get a sense. Instead, in a moment of impatience, I conjured to mind a memory of Gerry Harmon in all his smug, presidential glory.

  My head felt like I'd shoved it up to a fire hydrant, sticking the valve directly into my nose, then opened it wide. I felt the force, the violence of thoughts injected straight into my brain like that high pressure water flow. I thumped to the ground, colors sparkling in my vision, and had this strange feeling that somehow I'd been hit so hard that my feet had flipped over my head at least once. I had a flash in my head of Scott Byerly, looking at me with deep concern, and then that faded.

  “What the–” Gabriel was staring at me beyond my hazy peripheral vision. Looked like he was standing on the wall behind me, head sticking horizontally out from behind my elbow.

  My brain ached as if someone had taken a hammer to it, but only after using a saw to remove the top of my skull first. The better to turn it all into wet mash. Augustus's face pushed into my cloudy, spot-filled field of vision, then so did Reed's. They flanked me, one on each side, as the colors started to fade.

  “Are you all right?” Reed's hand rested on my upper arm, worry showing through the pressure he was applying.

  “Owww,” I said. “Did my feet just fly up over my head? Or was that a hallucination?”

  “Naw, that happened,” Augustus said, taking my other arm. “What'd you do?”

  I dropped my voice to meta-low. “Tried to use my telepathic powers.” I touched my forehead. It did not feel good. I summoned to mind a vision of Wolfe, and the pain receded.

  “You get anything?” Reed asked, reciprocating with the meta-low voice.

  “Yeah, fragments,” I said. “Something about...'Houston Ship Channel.' Whatever that is?”

  “What's going on here?” came a familiar voice. A face shoved into view over Reed's shoulder – Scott.

  I stared at him, blinking. “Scott...is he...are you really here?”

  Reed glanced up, then back at me. “He's really here, yes. He was on his way, remember?”

  “Did she have some kind of episode?” Gabriel asked. “Do I need to call a doctor?”

  “I'm fine,” I said. “Just...sudden onset migraine. I–”

  The door at the far end of the conference room flew open. Someone was standing there. Someone I couldn't see. When they spoke, the voice loud, deep, trumpeting, and hurt my already hurting head.

  “There's been an attack on an oil tanker,” the speaker said. “In the Houston Ship Channel, near the port. It's about to explode.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  Scout

  Isaac and AJ emerged from the water sopping, about a hundred or so yards away from where Francine and Scout had been waiting. Isaac's stylish clothing just dripped, but he wore a broad grin.

  “Yesssss,” Francine hissed.

  Scout heard her – barely. Her ears were still ringing from the explosion. She took in the exultation for only a moment before turning her eyes away, to the center of the ship channel.

  A fire burned, and parts of the tanker still floated on the surface. It was in half, burning, smoke rushing to the heavens, the oily, chemical, choking smell billowing into the air. When it had blown up, Scout and Francine had been bowled over, a shock wave hitting her harder than any of Isaac's ever had.

  “We win,” Isaac said, slapping his hands down, throwing water onto the dirty shore. His grin was inescapable. “We've struck the first blow on this battlefield – two of them, actually – and they were mighty ones.”

  Scout's ears were still ringing, but she heard him through this.

  “Yeah!” Francine pumped her arms in the air, including the AK she'd taken up from AJ before he'd gone on this little excursion.

  AJ, still dripping fiercely, had a slightly more chill smile. “So cool. And we left 'em that little surprise in the middle of the channel.” His grin went toothy as he cast a look toward the burning waters.

  “Onward, my friends,” Isaac said, striding over to the piece of fencing that he'd used to carry them all this way. Scout wanted to shudder, looking at it, but instead she turned her gaze back to the burning slick of oil on the surface of the channel.
/>
  This was good.

  This would show them.

  “Scout?” Isaac's voice was soft, and his hand was suddenly on her shoulder, a near spectral touch, light and perfect.

  She turned and he was there, staring at her with deep concern in his eyes.

  He brushed his knuckles against her jaw, bringing his head down to look her in the eye. “You don't seem as happy as the others.”

  Scout forced a smile. “I'm happy.” She looked at the burning flames dancing across the water again. “Really...really happy.” The ringing was still there in her ears from the detonation.

  Isaac's hand came to rest on her collarbone, against her shirt instead of her skin, and he smiled as he looked her in the eyes. “We've done something real here. Something that matters. They'll be talking about the blow we struck here today for as long as humans live on this planet. We're reversing the course of human damage.”

  “But we're causing damage,” Scout said, and it came out in the meekest of whispers, where she could barely hear it herself.

  “A necessary evil,” Isaac said, and he ran a single finger down the side of her neck. “They won't listen if we don't make enough noise. We agreed on that, right?”

  Scout watched the flames, and felt as though she could sense them burn in her soul.

  But to Isaac she just looked up and smiled as a single tear coursed down her cheek. “If this is what it takes,” she said, “then yes. I agree.”

  Isaac smiled. “Good.” He waved to the others, who had been standing behind her. “Let's go get the next one done.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  Sienna

  “I got there just in time to see you do some kind of spasming backflip from outside the conference room,” Scott Byerly said, sitting next to me in the second row seat of the Texas DPS SUV. “What the hell happened?” He dropped his voice. “Did I hear you say something about using Harmon powers?”