Gridlock

by Byron L. Dorgan

  “I’ll talk to the nation tonight.”

  39

  MAKAROV DIDN’T HAVE the slightest qualm about flying back to Minneapolis, in part because the authorities would never suspect that he would return. In addition, he flew American Airlines, not Delta and not first class, and he rented a small car from Budget instead of a full-sized sedan from Hertz, and his look was different—light hair and pale eyes instead of dark, no glasses, darker complexion. He walked with a limp and he carried a different set of papers. People tended to see what they expected to see, and he was a completely different man, coming in contact with a different set of people.

  Nevertheless he was as cautious as practicable under the circumstances. The risk to him here in Minneapolis where he was anonymous was only as slight as the speed he drove—too fast and he would be stopped and ticketed, or too slow and he would come under suspicion.

  Once he had rented an anonymous dark blue Camry, he drove away from the airport but instead of heading west on I-94, he pulled off at a shopping mall on the way into the city and parked long enough to check his iPad first for any messages. Delgado had promised to warn him if something were to come up, and one message from the SEBIN officer was in his in-box.

  This was not expected, Delgado had written, and he included a link to the White House Twitter account of Nicholas Fenniger, with the warnings presumably from Dekker in Amsterdam.

  Delgado had also cautioned from the beginning that the power outage and the murder of the lineman in North Dakota were only the opening moves of something much larger. But this now, engineering a series of rolling blackouts across the country, made little or no sense to Makarov.

  At the very least the power cuts would cause a lot of headaches for Americans, and probably even some accidents and maybe even a few deaths when home medical equipment without power backups turned off.

  But the actions—especially so openly announced—could be a cause for an actual shooting war against Venezuela and against Iran. But the only way the U.S. could possibly come out ahead of the game would be all-out war. Maybe even using tactical nukes to take out some key targets in both countries—especially Iran’s nuclear program and Venezuela’s hydro power stations. Short of that, the U.S. would actually be losers in the sense that they had lost in Iraq and certainly in Vietnam.

  And against all of that were his orders to find and assassinate Nate Osborne, a war hero, but nothing more than a small-town cop, which made even less sense to him. Unless he was missing something.

  But two million euros—one million of which he’d already been paid, made perfect sense all of itself.

  He pulled up a city directory for Minneapolis–St. Paul, finding the address of a place called Twin Cities Gun Emporium within a few blocks of the state Capitol. He took I-35 east across the river, finding the big gun shop just off Minnehaha Avenue. The place wasn’t very busy, only a few cars in the parking lot and a handful of customers inside the store which was about the size of a Walmart.

  He found the handgun section, and an old man with long white hair wearing bib overalls and combat boots came up to him.

  “Help you with something?”

  “I want a pistol. Ten-millimeter, auto load. I’m more interested in reliability and accuracy then I am with magazine capacities.”

  “Glock is a good pistol. The twenty is standard sized. Fifteen rounds.” He walked down to the glass counter which held the Glocks, opened the drop flap in back, and took out the Glock 20.

  “Doesn’t jam, good accuracy, easy maintenance.”

  Makarov knew the pistol well, but he took it and felt its heft. “A little big.”

  “What’s your most important purpose?”

  “Self-defense.”

  “Conceal and carry?”

  “Yes.”

  The old man returned the 20 and pulled out a smaller version. “Model twenty-nine. Same good features, fires a ten-millimeter round, smaller box magazine, ten shots.”

  Makarov took the pistol, hefted it, then checked the action. “This is about right.”

  “Two magazines? One or two boxes of ammo?”

  “Two magazines, one box of ammunition,” Makarov said.

  “Let’s do some paperwork,” the old man said.

  “Well, that’s the problem,” Makarov said.

  The old man’s eyes narrowed. “A felony conviction doesn’t need to be a real problem.”

  “I’m not a U.S. citizen. British Virgin Islands.”

  “You’re not allowed to carry a concealed weapon here or down there.”

  “I know,” Makarov said, and he counted out two thousand in hundreds and laid them on the counter.”

  The old man pocketed the bills without hesitation, and grinned. “Like I said, Mr. Smith, let’s do some paperwork.”

  * * *

  IT WAS nearly seven P.M. Central Time before Makarov cleared the Twin Cities on I-94 just past where it merged with I-494 between Cedar Island and Fish Lakes. Traffic was light heading west, the weather was clear. He’d loaded the pistol and spare magazine, and although he was hungry he decided not to stop until much later.

  Osborne lived alone on a ranch he’d inherited from his parents outside Fryburg just north of the interstate about five miles east of Medora. So far as Makarov had learned from his hasty researches, the spread was a nonproducing ranch, and therefore no hands worked the property. The place was relatively isolated, the nearest neighbors in Fryburg, which was not an incorporated town, only a listed as a populated place.

  He phoned Osborne’s home number, and after five rings an answering machine came on, and he broke the connection. Next he called the Billings County Sheriff’s weekend and after-hours number, but he got a message advising the caller that if this was an emergency to dial 911, or telephone the Highway Patrol Office at Dickinson. He hung up before the message was completed.

  Osborne wasn’t home and his office was closed. Which could mean he was simply away for the evening; maybe in town for dinner, maybe out at the Initiative, or maybe even at his girlfriend’s place in Bismarck.

  He looked up the number for the Rough Riders Hotel where he’d been briefed Osborne often went for drinks and dinner. There’d been some trouble there with his girlfriend over the holidays.

  A woman answered on the third ring. “Rough Riders.”

  “I’m trying to find Sheriff Osborne, he’s not at home and his office doesn’t answer.”

  “That right? Who’s calling?”

  “Special Agent Robert Banks, the FBI’s Denver field office.”

  The woman backed off. “Oh, sorry. Nate’s not here. I think he flew up to Minneapolis to speak to one of your people. I can get you the number.”

  “That’s not necessary. Does Sheriff Osborne have a cell phone number?”

  “I don’t have it, but I’m sure you can reach him in Minneapolis.”

  “Thank you for your help.”

  “What’d you say your name was?” the woman asked, but Makarov hung up.

  For just a moment he was convinced that somehow the Bureau knew that he was returning to Minneapolis, but that was impossible. In any event there would have been an increased police presence at the airport had they suspected. But he’d detected nothing out of the ordinary.

  In any event Osborne was out of town, which was a piece of luck. If it held until morning Makarov would be at the ranch house waiting for him.

  40

  IT WAS AFTER five by the time Whitney had finished briefing her team, and they’d all marched over to Henry’s where they had burgers, fries, and beers. She advised them to stick around at least until the damage the rolling blackouts were sure to cause had been straightened out, and they’d agreed accept for Pat Zobel and Pat’s best friend, Cynthia Burgantz, who planned on heading to Boston in Cynthia’s Lexus SUV first thing in the morning.

  “Wouldn’t catch me in a plane if some air-traffic-control facility or some airport on our route got knocked out,” Cynthia said. She was a brilliant bioph
ysicist, who came from a wealthy family, and she’d been used to doing things her own way most of her life.

  “What if you run out of gas in one of the blacked-out cities?” Whitney had asked.

  “They’re warning about rolling blackouts. We’d just sit still wherever we were until the power came back on and we could pump gas.”

  “That’s not what I meant. You guys saw what went on during Katrina. Soon as the power went off, the looters came out of the woodwork. Even the cops couldn’t handle it. I just don’t want to see you two in the middle of something like that.”

  “I have a pistol in my glove compartment and I know how to use it,” Cynthia said. She smiled. “We’ll be okay, Doc. And I’ll be looking for you in the journals.”

  “And the cover of Time,” someone said and everyone cheered.

  They were planning on throwing a big party in Washington next month courtesy of ARPA-E. They’d worked hard, under trying conditions—not one of them had hesitated to take over from the postdocs, some of who’d been murdered and some of the others who’d quit over the holidays—but the strain had been telling. They tended to be more snappish than most scientists, ready to party hard at the drop of a hat. And now they were just as ready to get back to their university positions and research projects, but they were also ready big time for next month in D.C., which had become a mantra lately.

  Two of Nettles’s off-duty sergeants were sitting at the bar drinking coffee and eating chili for which the New York transplant restaurant was famous. They looked over where Whitney and her postdocs were seated around a large round table, and glared. They didn’t want to be here, none of the security team did. The last time they’d been too late to do much more than mop up after the civilians who’d taken out most of the bad guys and had prevented the serious damage that could have been done. And this time they’d done even less, because so far there’d been no direct threat to the project or its scientists.

  Whitney got up and hugged all her postdocs, especially Cynthia and Pat. “If I don’t see you in the morning before you take off, watch yourself.”

  “Where will you be?” Mulholland asked. They were all surprised.

  “I’m going into town tonight and wait it out there.”

  Mulholland glanced over at the two men at the bar. “Do you think Ranger Rick will let you through the front gate?”

  “They’re doing their jobs, so don’t let’s make it any harder for them,” Whitney said. “No one is going to arrest me.”

  Mulholland grinned. “Say hi to the sheriff and Ashley for us,” he said.

  * * *

  IN HER quarters Whitney tossed a few things into an overnight bag. Most of the rest of her clothes and personal belongings were already packed and ready to be sent to the apartment the CDC had found for her outside Atlanta. All she had left were a last few things from her office.

  Nate had told her on more than one occasion that anytime she wanted to get away from the project she should drive out to the ranch.

  “Anytime night or day,” he’d told her, and Ashley had agreed.

  “Just call first, or honk your horn or knock or something, just in case.”

  And they’d all laughed.

  Whitney had decided months ago that she was going to miss them. After losing Jim Cameron during the attack, the only man she’d ever known who she thought she could actually settle down with, she’d gravitated toward Nate and Ash. They were happy and in love, the way she’d envisioned her life would be with Jim.

  She knew that she was a needy person, and that she was horning in on their relationship, but she’d told herself it was just temporary. Sometimes North Dakota had been a very lonely place for her. She didn’t know if Atlanta would be any better, but at least she would be surrounded with a lot more people—seriously smart and motivated people—and just maybe something would click for her. She hoped so. And it was a place and a routine that she was familiar with.

  Her work was done, time to move on, and she felt as if she couldn’t spend another night here. At least not this night, not until the attacks came to an end.

  She looked at her image in the mirror over her bureau. Her features were gaunt, and her eyes drooped. It came to her that she was tired and more than a little frightened.

  Grabbing her jacket and overnight bag, she left her room and went down to the lobby of the barracks, where Captain Nettles was waiting for her. Whitney was six feet tall, and Nettles was shorter than her, dark complected, with a mustache. He was dressed in camos, a holstered pistol strapped to his chest. The expression on his narrow face was not unkind.

  “I heard that you were leaving tonight,” he said.

  “Any objections?” she asked.

  “Yes, ma’am. General Forester asked that we keep you safe. He’s sending a jet for you in the morning, and we’re going to chopper you over to the Dickinson airport to meet it.”

  “That’s tomorrow, in the meantime I’m going into town tonight.”

  “I don’t think that’s such a good idea, Doctor.”

  “Nevertheless that’s how it’s going to be unless you place me under arrest.”

  Nettles shook his head in exasperation. “Goddamnit, we’re doing our best here to keep you and your people and this place intact. I’d like a little help.”

  “You heard about the rolling blackouts. Well, that’s what they’re going to do this time. They’re not coming back here, and no one is gunning for me.”

  “I have my orders.”

  “Which doesn’t include me,” Whitney said. She stepped around him and went outside where she’d parked her government-issue Ford Taurus.

  Nettles came to the door. “Keep your cell phone on, please. General Forester will want to talk to you.”

  “I’ll tell him that you did your best, but that I slugged you.”

  41

  THE BUREAU’S GULFSTREAM IV, with the military designator C-20F, touched down at Joint Base Andrews Naval Air Facility across the river from Washington around seven thirty in the evening local. On the flight out from Minnesota, Ashley had worked on a series of stories which she planned on filing as soon as she got permission from her father.

  Osborne, Ashley, and Deb Rausch thanked the crew and then walked across to where a black GMC Yukon with government plates was waiting for them, two men wearing FBI blue windbreakers standing beside it.

  “This time he’s not going to say no,” Ashley said. “Not with what we’ve got coming our way tomorrow.”

  “I agree,” Osborne said, and she looked up at him appreciatively.

  “For once, so do I,” Rausch said.

  The two men identified themselves as Special Agents Mueller and Johnson, and as soon as Osborne, Ashley, and Rausch climbed into the back of the GMC they headed across the base to one of a series of low-slung concrete buildings behind a tall razor wire–topped fence.

  They’d come to Washington on Rausch’s insistence so that Osborne and Ashley—but especially Osborne—could be debriefed. He’d thought they’d they be taken to the Bureau’s headquarters downtown, and he said as much to Rausch.

  “Change of plans in light of the Tweets on Mr. Fenniger’s account. Twitter’s been unable to shut the site down, and that alone has a lot of people interested in talking to you. To the both of you.”

  “Why me?”

  “Because you knew about Hibbing, and you knew the right questions to ask.”

  “What’s this place?” Osborne asked as they were buzzed through the unmanned gate after the driver stuck his head out the open window and submitted to a retinal scan.

  “It’s a debriefing center, for want of a better term,” Rausch said.

  “What better term?” Ashley asked sharply.

  “It’s an isolation center we share with the CIA.”

  “Hometown rendition,” Ashley said.

  “No. It’s just your father and a couple of people—one of them from the Bureau and the other from the Agency—want to talk to you about what happened over
the holidays, and what else Nate knows about the Russian he was stationed with in Afghanistan.”

  “We’re not under arrest?” Ashley pressed.

  “Good heavens, no.”

  “Then turn around now and take us back to the plane. I need to get to Bismarck.”

  “Easy,” Osborne said. He placed a hand on her knee. “There’s a lot at stake.” He turned to Rausch as they came up to the entrance to one of the buildings. “We’re not staying here tonight. You will take us back to Dickinson.”

  “It’s out of my hands.”

  Ashley started to object, but Osborne squeezed her knee.

  “It’s not negotiable,” Osborne said.

  * * *

  INSIDE THEY were ushered into a surprisingly done-up room with wood paneling, a few world cities posters on the walls, soft lighting, carpeting, and a conference table around which were six leather chairs.

  General Forester, seated at the table with a stern-looking man dressed in an open-collar shirt and jeans, and a jolly-looking, almost grandmotherly woman in a print dress, got to his feet. “Here they are at last,” he said.

  He introduced the other two as Duane Urban, a Special Projects officer with the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, and Dotty Hughes, a senior investigator with the FBI’s Cyber Crimes division. She gave them warm smiles.

  “We’re going to give you folks one hour, and then we’re going to leave and the Bureau is going to fly us back to Dickinson,” Osborne said.

  “We’ll decide that,” Urban said.

  “Not if you want my cooperation. There’s going to be a whole lot of frightened people tomorrow if this blackout actually occurs—which I think it will—and I’m going to be with the people of my county when it does. So let’s make it quick and easy.”

  The CIA officer started to object but Forester held him off. “The president will address the nation at eight for the same reason you want to be back in North Dakota. So let’s start with your Russian, Yuri Makarov. Tell us about him and how you figured he’s involved.”

  Osborne did, succinctly, wasting no words as if he were giving a military SITREP.