“Let’s just break a window,” she suggested in a too-loud voice.
Sound travelled in the forest. Will lowered his own voice and looked around. “You’re nuts! That’s breaking and entering.”
“Only if we get caught. This place is seriously isolated. I’ll buy them a new window, or we can replace it, and they’ll never even know we were here.”
“This doesn’t sound like a solid plan.”
“You’d rather the Russian sniper find us? You have a better idea?”
Will sighed. “No.”
Maddy broke a small bedroom window with a stone from the yard, used the same rock to remove the glass shards that were left in the frame, then crawled in, and let him in the front door. At least the neighborhood was quiet tonight. The house was secluded, the nearest neighbor a five-minute walk down the road. Still, he moved the car into the garage and drew the curtains for privacy.
After a quick review of the changes the new owners had made to the house, Will uncorked the bottle of German Riesling that he had bought from the liquor store next to the restaurant, opened the food containers, and turned on the TV to watch the news. “I doubt the murders will have made the news up here.”
“Probably not,” Maddy agreed.
Instead, the breaking news was about Russia. The announcer’s headline was, “New Russian e-bomb knocks out Chinese town’s electronics.”
They exchanged a glance about the mention of Russia, and Maddy’s chopsticks paused for a moment.
After a commercial, the news footage showed a quick, brilliant flash over a Chinese TV station in Yanbian, a town near the Russian Far East. The video was grainy, captured by a cell phone, but it was followed by interviews with several experts who postulated that this was the deployment of Russia’s first electromagnetic “e-bomb.” The Chinese TV station and the surrounding areas were reportedly still off-line, so the expert’s theory made sense.
The announcer indicated that this type of weapon was a warhead that, when exploded, emitted a high-energy, high-powered microwave pulse that fused electrical equipment within range, rendering it useless. Dangerous technology, Will thought.
To punctuate the newscaster’s point, they interspersed the cell phone video footage with images of destroyed cameras and TVs from the Chinese broadcasting station. Melted circuits made the TVs look like dripping Salvador Dali paintings. Will shivered.
Putting the sound on “Mute,” Will turned to Maddy. “I’d heard that we, the United States that is, used an early version of an e-bomb to knock out an Iraqi TV station back in the Gulf War to stop Saddam’s propaganda machine.”
“If those melted electronics are any indication, it’s an effective weapon. That TV oozed like blood from a wound. Let’s see what else they have to say.”
Will turned the sound back on in time to hear the introduction of an expert on emerging weapons technology. He was with Decisive Weaponry Corp., in Herndon, Virginia.
The expert said, “Although much of the work on this type of weapon is classified, we believe that the US military has actively pursued these types of high-powered microwave ‘HPM’ weapons since the 1940s, when scientists first observed the powerful electromagnetic shock wave that accompanied atmospheric nuclear detonations.”
Nukes. Will and Maddy shared a glance.
“Current efforts are based on using high-temperature superconductors to create intense magnetic fields.” Summing up the interview, the expert continued, “A well-made e-bomb could unleash as much electrical power in a flash as the Hoover Dam generates in twenty-four hours. The power blast could knock a city off the grid by burning out batteries, frying semi-conductors, melting wiring, and exploding transformers.”
Will’s mind raced with the implications. The Western world’s weaponry was highly sophisticated, with intricate electronic circuits, software, and computer chips. Not to mention the economies of nations that relied on electronics for banking, telecommunications, and shipping. Or, his own personal reliance on the power grid, the internet, phones, stoves, refrigerators, and cars. What didn’t utilize electronics these days? Will stared around the house and shivered again, feeling cold all over.
The announcer wrapped up the segment with the theoretical good news that the Russians were said to need a reliable source of high-temperature superconductive material for the weapon to pose a viable threat.
Will again muted the television and turned to Maddy. “Two Russian incidents in one day. Coincidence?”
She hadn’t touched her food. “Maybe. Maybe not. But where’s the e-bomb connection?”
“I have no idea, but Russia would probably kill ten of us to enable a weapon like that.” Finished with dinner, Will twirled his flashlight’s keychain ring around his finger, sending the flashlight round and round. The rhythmic movement comforted him somehow.
“My god, can you imagine the world without electronics? No internet?”
Will shuddered. “I can but would rather not. I’m already having phone withdrawal. It would completely screw our ability to defend ourselves from an attack. Think about all the electronics embedded in our modern weapons.”
“And I couldn’t stream Walking Dead, which might be ironic. Did you see that melted TV? Can you say ‘Dali’? But seriously, are you seeing some kind of World War Three scenario?”
“A weapon like that, in this day and age, would be the mother of all weapons. Sure, I could see another world war if someone attacked the United States and didn’t fully succeed in wiping us out. We’d attack right back and things would escalate from there.”
“Great. Just great. The entire world killing each other. That’s even better than the murders this morning and our near-death lunch experience. I’ve lost my appetite and am going to bed.” She threw her dishes into the trash and strode to her old room.
Will knew he tended to see the world through a half-empty glass but this did indeed seem dire. Mechanically, he drank more wine as he mulled over the information. With Russia’s aggressive behavior in Ukraine, he wasn’t surprised by this latest attack on China, but it was disconcerting, to say the least. The Dali-esque image of the melted TV haunted him.
After Maddy’s light went out, Will smoked on the deck, worried about Russians, and fighting grief. Maria was gone, his father dead. He couldn’t even bury them. His heart ached with the loss. It felt almost too much to bear, like he was scuba diving without air. As his father had taught him, he tried focusing on his breathing and listening to the wind in the trees, but he couldn’t slow the train of his thoughts. His heart ached and he nearly wanted to die, just to stop the pain.
Later, as he slept, he dreamt he was dropping down through a void, falling forever through black emptiness.
CHAPTER 18
June 26, 8:27 a.m.:
Maddy woke with a groan as she left the nightmare behind and reached for Vincent. In her dream, spiders were crawling out of the heater ducts and swarming all over her, biting her neck and shoulders. She was unable to move, had been trapped. At least that wasn’t a real dream. Wait. Not only was Vincent missing from her bed, but there was also a Russian sniper intent on killing them. She groaned again.
The right side of her neck was stiff, so stiff that it pained her to move it. She lay in the strange bed, in the familiar room, for a long minute, massaging her right shoulder and the back of her neck.
The truth was, she felt hurt on a number of levels. Besides the discomfort in her neck, there was a weight in her chest and a heaviness throughout her whole body. It was how she had felt in the aftermath of her first failed aikido belt test: basically, beat up. Facing the day seemed too daunting. What if the killer found them? What was this Aragon Châsse that Dad thought so important? What would happen if the Russians made more e-bombs? And what the hell is Vincent doing this morning?
Anger, frustration, and tears threatened, but she fought them off, not wanting to feel any of it, afraid the feelings would consume her. Instead she pounded her fists on the bed once and forced herself
into the shower to see if she could at least get her neck to loosen up.
After dressing in the same clothes she had worn yesterday, she went out to the kitchen and was amused that Will had gotten over his reluctance at imposing upon the owners. The smell of coffee wafted through the air and, from the packaging on the counter and the crumbs on his plate, he had eaten a frozen waffle. He sat at a round table in the breakfast nook nursing his coffee and looking out the window, a pack of cigarettes on the table. Thankfully, it smelled like he’d smoked outside.
“How’d you sleep?” Maddy asked.
“Not very well. You?”
“Me neither.” Earlier in the shower, she’d had some ideas about their situation. “Do you think we should call Bella and let her know we were shot at in Sacramento?”
“Bella, our dear sister, is married to Marty, studly fireman and poster child for the NRA. And no, as we discussed yesterday, I think we need to stay off the grid. Want some coffee?”
“Yes, to coffee. But how practical is going dark? How are we going to know what’s going on, or--” She almost couldn’t say it. “--or make funeral arrangements?”
“I know. I want to notify Maria’s family. I wish I could bring Dad and Maria back, but I can’t. Mostly I want to keep us safe and figure out who is behind this nightmare. Don’t you?”
Maddy sat down across the table from Will. “Of course, I do. But I’m already tired of running.”
“It’s not your style. You’re a fighter. However, in this situation, are you prepared to use aikido against guns?”
She rubbed at her neck. “Not really.”
“Okay, so my suggestion is that we get a Chronicle at the grocery store, or a Napa paper if they still carry one up here. Maybe the paper will give us a report about the murder. Dad hooked us up with plenty of cash, so we’re good to hang low for a day or two.”
“The paper is a good idea but I want to warn Bella. Let’s discuss it all further.” She twirled her hair around her fingers. “Perhaps over some real food?”
“Sure, that waffle was lame. Where do you want to go?”
“How about the Fire Sign Café? We can shop at the thrift store in Tahoe City and get some new clothes after we get that newspaper.”
“All right, let’s go.”
An hour later, they were seated in the crowded café next to an old stone fireplace, trying to make small talk while waiting for their order. Will looked dapper as always in a light-green hoodie, and she had found a long-sleeve T-shirt and a North Face fleece for the mountain chill that would come in the evening. She loved sitting on the café’s outdoor patio, but the wait to sit out there would have taken forever.
Their polished wood table stood under a window that was crowned by a black-and-white checkered valence, and it held a single yellow flower in a juice glass for decoration. Sun shining through the lake side of the café, the charming knotty pine walls, and the happy patrons provided an elegant juxtaposition to her edgy mood. As the breakfast destination on the west shore, the café was a little crowded for her taste, but she’d always enjoyed the delicious food. She hoped she could eat. Maybe it would make her neck feel better.
Will sipped his steaming coffee. “So how are your aikido skills coming along? Seems they might come in handy if we get attacked at close range.”
“I’m no Steven Seagal, if that’s what you’re hoping.”
“Bummer.” He gave her a disappointed smile. “How close are you?”
“He’s seventh dan and I’m trying to pass the test for second dan.” She left unsaid that she’d failed the test twice already.
“What can the seventh dan types do that you can’t? I don’t remember any of those kinds of details from my abbreviated participation back in our summer-school program.”
“They’re much better at many things, but particularly working with and directing energy. Some of the masters hardly touch their opponents. They just take the energy of the opponent and use it against them.”
“That’s for real? Not woo-woo stuff? I have a hard time believing it.”
“I’ve seen a few exhibitions. Once, I saw a skinny master pin a huge weight-lifter with a single finger.”
“No way!”
“True deal. A one-finger pin.”
“So, what do you think it’s like to direct energy?”
In frustration, she clenched her fists together under the table. This was the big reason why she hadn’t passed her test. “I don’t know. My sensei talks about it.”
“Sounds weird.”
“Remember when we were kids and you would sometimes feel what I was feeling?”
It had never been predictable, but every once in a while, they’d felt an emotion the other was experiencing. She’d always thought it a twin thing.
“Yeah,” he answered.
“Maybe it’s similar. He has me doing visualizations during meditation to try and move my own energy around. I have a long way to go with that and still have some fear to work through, too, which will help unblock the energy.”
Will took another sip of coffee. “Fear, huh?”
“Yeah. My sensei recommends that I don’t become a teacher myself until I get better at feeling and directing energy.”
“You’re a black belt though, can’t you teach now?”
“Technically, I could teach once I get to nidan, my next level, but my sensei would consider it arrogant to teach too soon. Fourth dan is more common. I’m excited to get there but want to do it the right way.”
“I see. What’s he say the energy feels like?”
She sat back, thinking. “He says when he meditates and the power starts to move, it feels like a river of sunshine--or something to that effect. Apparently, hard to put words to it.”
Will got a faraway look in his eyes, as if he were remembering something. It was either too good a memory, or one now too sad, as he changed the subject. “Want to check the paper and see what we can find?”
Guessing the memory was about Maria and energy they had shared, she didn’t push it. “Sure.”
They both grabbed a couple of sections, and she skimmed the contents for anything related to yesterday’s events.
After several minutes of searching, she put her part of the paper down. “See anything?”
“Not yet.” Will scanned the Metro section. “Wait. Here we go.” He broke into his lopsided grin. “Aha! You were right about him being Russian.”
She leaned over the table to try to get a look at the paper. “Oh yeah?”
“Yes, this article says that a Russian citizen was found dead in a car at the bottom of a Napa Valley canyon. They indicate his companion is still at large.”
She reached for the news. “Let me see.”
He handed the paper to her and she scanned the short article but learned nothing new.
All of a sudden, a bulky shadow fell over the paper and her heart jumped in her chest. It wasn’t the waitress.
Maddy looked up and recognized Teddy Thorenson, AKA Bear, a strong, short, stout friend from high school who once had an embarrassing one-way crush on her. They had all gone to the same high school, and he’d enrolled in summer aikido as well.
His wide smile shone through a fashionably scruffy beard, and she noticed he was wearing dark-blue jeans, black boots, a tight T-shirt over a strong set of shoulders, and a bandana over his military-style blond hair. His light-blue eyes sparkled with amusement that he had made her jump.
It was too bad that he just wasn’t her type, as he was more rugged and handsome now than he was in high school. He’d grown up and filled out. Exclusively, she liked tall men, and he was still a good several inches shorter than she. Pity.
Bear looked down at them both and said, in his trademark Southern drawl, “Madeline Argones and Sir Skeptalot. Y’all mind if I pull up a chair?”
CHAPTER 19
10:25 a.m.:
D’Angelo sat in his car outside the Fire Sign Café, pulled off his navy ball cap, and subvocalized into hi
s throat mike on a secure line. “The process has been set in motion.”
Tasha, his assistant back in Washington, DC, at VanOps headquarters, responded in the affirmative. “Yes, Director.”
“I’m en route now, heading to the Reno airport.”
“Thank you, sir, safe travels.”
He smiled. Maybe he’d take a turn at the slots before his flight left.
The mission was off to a good start. One of his IT staffers had hacked into the rental car company database and used that data to track the blue Mustang Will Argones had rented at the airport. D’Angelo had predicted they’d flee to Lake Tahoe: animals always sought their den when hunted. But he hadn’t known how long it would take. They had headed straight to Tahoe, so last night, he’d unleashed Master Sergeant “Bear” Thorenson. And Thorenson just completed the initial rendezvous as planned.
Perhaps Lady Luck would smile on him at the airport. Cha-ching.
At any rate, the timeline had just accelerated, and that was a good thing indeed.
CHAPTER 20
10:26 a.m.:
Will and Maddy, in unison, answered in the affirmative that, “Of course,” Bear could pull up a chair to join them for breakfast.
Will didn’t appreciate the high school “Sir Skeptalot” reference to his cynical personality and felt uneasy at the overt masculine energy emanating from Bear--it was like a strong smell. He hadn’t remembered Bear’s shoulders being quite so...hefty. Although he was a running back on the high school football team, Bear had a definite presence to him now, but Will wasn’t sure he could trust him. In his experience, most men with that many muscles didn’t have much in the way of brains.
And why was he here? There’d been a lot of coincidences lately and this one, on top of yesterday’s grief, made Will feel uneasy.
The Lost Power: VanOps, Book 1 Page 6