Search For Reason (State Of Reason Mystery, Book 2)

by Miles A. Maxwell

  “What happened to the six thousand you usually keep on hand?”

  “The military took it. A tank truck was supposed to be here yesterday morning. It never showed up. Sorry, guys.”

  The tanker for Williams hadn’t come either. Between the MD-900 and the diesel-powered bucket trucks, they’d soon burn through every drop in the yard. Everon compressed his lips. He had no idea where Scrounge might be.

  “What?” Nan said.

  Everon glanced at her. “What?”

  “Sounded like you said, I hope he comes through?”

  “Scrounge — the fuel.”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  “Anybody listening!” a high, frantic voice screeched through their headsets. Hunt’s little secretary Toni! “We need a helicopter! Please — anybody? We think our radio operator’s having a heart attack!”

  Enya! No!

  Without a moment’s hesitation Everon peeled upward in a climbing turn — keying his mic in one single fluid motion:

  “We’re on our way!”

  Hatred And Programming

  Blackness!

  He was frozen into a kneeling position; his arms immovable; his head, wedged into something. Attempting to alter the angle of any body part was excruciatingly painful. Sunni Imam Ghazi Ibn Abdullah al-Hussein had no idea where he was. But wherever I may be, I will fight for Allah!

  Yet, in the corner of his vision on a dirt floor sat the brilliant Golden Tablet. The last he could remember? Carrying it through the marketplace. Then, surrounded by those women who were men!

  The voices whispered again: “It’s taking longer than usual.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s resistance. He’s highly resistant.”

  Ghazi couldn’t focus. The voices were everywhere, and they were nowhere.

  “Increase the dosage? What if it kills him?”

  “We’ll have to. He’s not really a true believer. He’s a politico.”

  The Imam’s blurry eyes were forced further open. More than a millimeter he could not twist his head. It was not enough. He felt a burning in his right arm as the liquid went in.

  Into the brain of the Saudi Imam swept images. Flashes of color, shapes — so bright! His mouth formed a grim smile. I can tolerate more than this! Then came the voices again, soothing, gnawing, endlessly probing — and he understood! Hatred flared within at that which they wished for him to do!

  But the images grew stronger, their colors more vibrant. The most delicious food, the most beautiful women, huge crowds hanging on his every word. Words he would never have thought to say.

  No! I cannot! And he fought back, leaning on his hatred, willing it to grow. They will pay for this! It will be such pleasure to seek Allah’s help in their punishment when I am free! He would cling to revenge. Ghazi would personally see his captors burn in the fires of hell before they died.

  But they kept on. He felt the heat in his right hand again. Overwhelming . . . No! No! I must ignore! His power to resist diminished. Wild sexual images took his thoughts, sensual delights . . . a banana. Breasts and buttocks covered in cream . . . until only the fading vestige of one last thing remained: They must not succeed!

  Until even that was swept away.

  He Couldn’t Let It Happen

  As Everon and Rani rushed Enya into the back of the MD-900, Andréa climbed into the right front seat where Everon had been, took the controls.

  “What do you think you’re doing!” Nan screamed at her.

  “I know where the hospital is,” Andréa said with authority. “You don’t.” She turned to the instruments, began firing up the engine.

  Nan bit down on her anger as they lifted off moments later. The skinny redhead’s right. I don’t know. She could either sit there and let Andréa fly or not go at all.

  Ignoring the animosity between the two female pilots, Everon studied Enya’s face. Beneath the oxygen mask, a painful grimace filled her frowning lips. Her eyes scrunched in agony. What do people do who don’t have a helicopter? he wondered. Or an ambulance, or even a phone?

  Enya suddenly reached up, pushed the oxygen mask half off her mouth. Eyes closed, she gasped out “40-29. 74-96.” And passed out.

  Everon pushed the plastic mask back over her mouth.

  “Those sound like GPS coordinates,” Nan said.

  Everon nodded. “She was collecting fire reports. We’ll check it later. Right now all I care about is getting her to a doctor.”

  Fourteen minutes later Andréa set them down gently on top of Trenton Memorial’s helipad.

  Orderlies rushed Enya inside. A man in a white coat, with short dark hair and a square jaw, studied the trace printed on a narrow band of paper as it rolled through a portable EKG. Everon knew this face. On his coat was a metal nameplate:

  The last time Everon had seen this doctor he was in a field tent, unwrapping Cynthia and Steve from their charred Aztec blanket. Putting his signature on the worst piece of paper Everon could imagine.

  His mind flashed on his own last words to his sister, less than two days ago at Kennedy Airport: “See you soon!” Strangely, Cynthia hadn’t said it back. And Cyn would never say anything back again.

  Now Enya? No! “You’re an ER doctor!” Everon blurted.

  The physician frowned and shook his head. “Cardiologist, actually.” Everon followed him from the ICU.

  “Teterboro Airport? You signed my sister’s death certificate.”

  Rass’s eyes opened large. “Oh. I remember you.”

  “How is she?” Everon asked, tilting his head back toward Enya. “Our friend.”

  “Not too good. You’re with Williams Power?”

  “Yes.”

  “She’s suffered a major attack. It’s critical she be on a respirator. Unfortunately this place is running down. We’ve been on our emergency generator for three days now, and from what I hear, we may not even have that much longer. I’m told we’re low on fuel.”

  Without a word, Everon turned and ran . . .

  Four flights down, in a big room at the end of a long concrete hallway, where the noise was something like sticking his head under the hood of an 18-wheeler, a slim-bodied man with gray hair, coal black skin and a forehead creased in what looked like a perpetual scowl was closing a valve on a furnace boiler. An oval on his coveralls said:

  “I’m told you’re low on fuel!” Everon yelled.

  “About six hours!” the mechanic yelled back. “Been trying to find some diesel all day! It’ll be sometime around ten o’clock tomorrow morning, then we’re out!”

  Everon thought of Enya lying on the bed upstairs by herself, breathing through an oxygen respirator. Lights dimming. Batteries fading. EKG going down. Then her respirator. Then — fuck!

  His jaw muscles clenched. He shook it away.

  That’s. Not. Going. To happen!

  Broken Line

  “Forty degrees-13 minutes north, 74-44 west,” Nan said, flying from the MD-900’s right seat. “We’re coming up on it now.”

  “You’re sure these were the numbers?” Andréa said doubtfully over the intercom. She was in the back seat and not at all thrilled to have Nan at the controls on the way back from the hospital.

  “That’s what I heard,” Everon said, staring hard out the left side of the windshield, watching the helicopter’s spotlight play over the flowing silvery conductors below. The lines connected two substations that were critical to getting power to Enya — Thomas and Nicola. And there was not a thing wrong with the wire as far as he could see. Which wasn’t all that far, considering how dark it was.

  “GPS looks solid,” Nan said. “Getting lucky with the satellites. Enya’s coordinates should be within the next half mile.”

  The ground dropped off suddenly and Everon angled the search beam to reflect off white snowy chunks, the surface of the Delaware River. Down south, he knew, was the Trenton Makes Bridge they’d crossed arriving with Hunt. Upriver to their right, the spot Washington had
crossed in his little boats on a winter night a lot like this one to defeat the British.

  Everon put the light back on the silver cables. The ground on the far bank rose to join them.

  “Hey!” Andréa pointed. “What’s that?”

  “A missing conductor, looks like.” Everon angled the light.

  “She was right!” Andréa said, clearly surprised.

  “Never doubt Enya,” Nan shot back. “GPS 74-96, right on the money.” She reduced throttle, pulled back on the stick until they hovered over a spot where one of the three conductors lay on the ground. It had separated at the first tower west of the river.

  “Never heard of a big line actually melting in half before,” Andréa said.

  “Me either,” Everon admitted.

  He drew a circle on the map at their location just west of the river. Damn! This will really set us back. Somehow we’ve got to get power to the hospital — to Enya quickly! Franklin’s words came back to him. “Fixing the grid is a waste of time.” He still didn’t know what Franklin had been talking about. Only that if he didn’t get this line repaired soon Enya would probably die.

  “Check out that black patch. That’s burned grass,” Andréa pointed. “That must be where the wires hit.”

  Nan circled slowly. “Just the one though — the other two conductors look okay.”

  “No effect on the towers,” Everon agreed.

  Nan followed the lines westward. For more than a mile, melted segments lay broken on the ground. Until the line flowed back up, across towers into the distance. The rest appeared to be connected.

  “That’s a pretty long stretch,” Andréa said. “We’ll have to run new cable all the way back to Nicola, won’t we, just to be sure? We’ll have to pull a leader first. Then —”

  “How much time does the hospital have, E?” Nan interrupted. “How long does Enya have? Before their backup generator runs out of fuel?”

  “Not long enough,” he whispered. “But there could be a faster way . . .”

  Everon looked at Nan, determined. “Take us back to Juniata.”

  A Call In The Night

  Too Easy! smiled Sheila Koontz. The minister’s listed! Clearly he’s new to the fame thing.

  She punched in the number she’d pulled off an inconsistent Internet at the little beat-up desk in the temporary cubical the network had furnished her in Cleveland. The line rang.

  At least I’m not risking life and limb hanging about in Washington or some other East Coast city just waiting to be bombed. No embedded Marine rides in Pakistan for this little girl!

  It stopped ringing.

  “Hello?”

  Nothing.

  She frowned and redialed. It started to ring again.

  Sheila fingered the cover of TIME with the intense-looking minister’s picture, the child in his arms and that owl head popping out of his shirt. She studied the shining bright cobalt-blue eyes. She’d catch him with his guard down.

  Rrrrring . . .

  Maybe it’ll go through this time.

  She checked the micro recorder. Connected. Running. Sheila’s middle finger tapping the beat-up plastic surface.

  The line rang a third time. The chair hurt her ass. Maybe he isn’t home. Probably has an answering machine.

  “Huwo?” a deep, sleepy voice answered.

  “Dr. Franklin Reveal?”

  “Yesh?”

  He’s there! “This is Sheila Koontz, National Press out of Washington, D.C. I was wondering if I might ask you a few questions? About you and your brother’s involvement in saving all those people on the George Washington Bridge? It was an absolutely wonderful thing you did and I think a lot of people don’t realize they owe their lives to you! It’s not every day true American heroes arise and You! Shouldn’t! Go! Unappreciated!

  “Now what I’d like to do is bring my cameraman over to Erie, get a few words from you for our national audience. And, if it’s okay with you, maybe we can get in touch with your brother. Set something up. What do you — Dr. Reveal?”

  A low snuffling sound came through the line. “Snnnnkhnnnh . . .”

  What? A snore?

  “Hello! Dr. Reveal? Hello! Hello!”

  Sheila tried back three more times.

  The line stayed busy.

  Flagler’s Fuel

  “Did you find the OWNERS?” Everon yelled out, stepping from the passenger side of a Williams Suburban.

  “No one’s answering their doors, E!” Scrounge’s voice came out of the darkness above the beam of a bouncing flashlight.

  Scrounge had parked the short-back tanker under the station’s high flat canopy. The station had been built in the thirty-degree V of two converging streets. Back off the row of pumps sat an old yellow wood-sided office and convenience store.

  “How’d you find this place?” Everon asked as the supply man’s face appeared.

  “A truck driver in Ocean City told me he delivered a load of diesel two hours before the New York bomb went off. He said they’re usually open twenty-four hours. He thinks the owner lives in the area. I knocked on every door, four blocks around — nearly a hundred homes. The only people who answered said the station’s been closed since.”

  “Well that’s not too encouraging,” Holmes said, stepping down from the driver’s side of the Suburban.

  “How’s Enya?” Scrounge asked.

  “It’s a major heart attack,” Everon said, walking rapidly toward the office. “She’s on a respirator. If we don’t get some power to the hospital, or some more fuel over there pretty soon —”

  “Shit, E!” Scrounge said, “There are only a few other places around that sell diesel. But they’re all closed too. There’s no telling how much they’ve got left.”

  “The Williams tanks are almost empty!” Holmes said. “That means no helicopters, and none of the bucket trucks will be able to go anywhere.”

  “I know what it means.”

  “Wherever Turban gets a generator going, those tanks are gonna be low too. Better get on it, buddy!”

  “I know, dammit!” Scrounge straightened his black-frame glasses, always on his face at some angle.

  “Lay off, Holmes,” Everon said, shining a light in through the office window. “Scrounge always comes through.” A yellowed business license hung on the rear wall. He couldn’t quite read the name. A corporation? A post office box, looks like. On the counter sat a stack of business cards for garage services. Probably a chain operation. Stores all across the country. Could take days to locate somebody in charge.

  Everon walked to the Suburban and opened the rear doors. He pulled out a long black crowbar.

  “Shouldn’t we wait until the military can supervise? Give us the okay or something?” Holmes asked, suddenly the nervous one.

  “Chances are, the military would appropriate whatever fuel’s here in the name of civil control,” Everon said. “Unless we get it first. The hospital runs out of diesel in five hours. I know Enya can’t wait. Do we put off fixing the lines tomorrow? Getting Turban fuel to run one of the turbine generators? Can two hundred thousand people wait for power?”

  “But —”

  “I’m taking responsibility. I’ll cover any damages once we locate the owners. If they’re still in the country.”

  The glass door looked thick. He hauled back his right arm, crowbar behind his head.

  “Uh — E!”

  Steps on the pavement behind him. SHOOK-SHOOK. The unmistakable ratcheting sound made him freeze mid-swing.

  The sound of a shotgun being cocked.

  The Deal

  “Stealing my gas is still a crime. Bombs or no bombs,” a voice said quietly.

  A man wearing a dark bathrobe and fluffy bedroom slippers walked into the light. His shotgun was pointed at Everon’s chest.

  “We weren’t going to steal it,” Everon said. “We were planning on replenishing what we took. We hope to have a fuel delivery coming in from Ocean City day after tomorr
ow. We’re from Williams Power. The company name is on the fuel truck over there.”

  The barrel end of the shotgun dropped about an inch. The guy appeared to be listening.

  “Trenton Memorial Hospital is severely short on diesel for their backup generators,” Holmes said. “We need diesel to run our helicopters. Diesel and gasoline for our trucks. Don’t you wanta help?”

  The gun came back up. “I’ll let this here shotgun help you right on down the road, boy, you try’n take my gas!”

  “We knocked on every door in the neighborhood,” Scrounge said.

  Everon held up a hand, shook his head at Scrounge. “If you want to prosecute I’ll understand, I’ll take the responsibility. These guys work for me.”

  The shotgun drooped. Slightly.

  “The Coast Guard’s new security measures are holding up our fuel shipments,” Everon said. “We’d like to make a deal with you. Some kind of trade.”

  The gun slid lower. “My tanks are half full,” said the man in the bathrobe. “Fair amount a’ fuel, but I’ve no way to pump it — even if I wanted to. I never sprung for a portable generator. Stupid I suppose.”

  He looked at the Williams tank truck. “I doubt that thing has a good enough self-primer to suck much out of the tanks.” He shrugged. “I don’t even have an inverter. Plenty of batteries but no way to run the pumps off them. How were you plannin’ on makin’ them run without electricity?”

  “We pulled one of the portable generators that were powering our control room. It’s in the back of that Suburban there.”

  The man looked up, thinking hard at the American flag that hung flat in the cold night air, jutting from over his office door. “I don’t know who the hell could have done this terrible thing,” he said to nobody in particular.