Power Trip

by Dom Testa

Poole broke in. “That guy Richter is on his way to Portland now.”

  “Swell,” I said. It was a race, and the other guys had a head start.

  “Forget Albuquerque,” Quanta said. “Go north to Montrose. There’s a regional airport there. We’ll have a plane from Denver pick you up in about two hours. It’ll get you to Portland tonight. Poole will send you all the details you need.”

  “Well,” I said. “If Richter has been dispatched to take care of the girlfriend, I guess there’s no question. There’s some bad shit going down.”

  “And we can’t step in without revealing what we know,” Quanta said. “They’d only shut down everything for now and just bide their time until they can strike. If they’re going to strike.”

  “They will,” I said.

  “We need them to set the wheels in motion before we can do anything.”

  “Officially.”

  Quanta paused, then said: “Swan, you know we always try officially first.”

  I didn’t comment. All three of us knew that doing things by the book was a curse. It was a necessary step to cover your ass, but it almost always got that ass shot off. And when officially didn’t work anymore, Q2 — and yours truly — stepped in to handle the dirty work.

  We took care of a few more housekeeping items and then I signed off. I’d already spun the Mercedes around and was cruising at 9 miles-per-hour above the speed limit toward the little regional airport in Montrose, Colorado.

  Chapter Eleven

  I’ve been to Portland many times and it’s never failed to charm me. The people are nice, the climate is decent, and the food is excellent. Okay, their infatuation with overrated craft beers wavers between cute and obnoxious, but Portlanders think they taste good and that’s all that matters.

  The flight in someone’s private plane — you never know whose it is and you never ask — was outstanding. I arrived about 7 o’clock, refreshed and well-fed, and so far the convict’s body was accepting the steak and potatoes just fine. A car awaited me, this time a BMW 3-series, and I scooted off toward Beaverton, home of a sneaker company and one of those small towns that always seems to end up on the list of “best places to live.”

  All I knew was that Beaverton was a suburb of Portland and that the singer from the Dandy Warhols was a native. I used to have a cool T-shirt from the Dandys, but that’s what I was wearing when I met the flame-thrower. I like the band, but I really liked that shirt.

  The skies were mostly overcast as I double-checked directions to the hotel for my interview. It was a mid-level chain, the kind government agencies like to use for informants and defectors. In other words, not too fancy but at least clean and comfortable. During the flight I’d done my homework on the young woman I’d be meeting.

  Name: Kyra. Age: 27. Occupation: Former accountant for LoGo, a corporation that employed more accountants than H&R Block. From what I could tell they had a significant amount of burn-and-churn in those departments, which meant they didn’t necessarily keep anyone around too long. I guess the longer you stayed, the more you knew and the more cynical you became.

  New recruits tend to provide a larger serving of rah-rah and go-team. So either Kyra had simply overstayed the usual tenure for a LoGo clerk or she’d left out of fear once her boyfriend died. My money was solidly on fear. That would explain hiding out at mom and dad’s house.

  But for now she was — we hoped — safely tucked away in a hotel room. Her parents had been encouraged to take a much-needed vacation, too, so if Richter was on his way to do some damage he’d have to play bloodhound first.

  He’d done it before. Martin Boldin, an engineer at LoGo, had gone to the FBI to share his suspicions about his employers. Days later he’d been found dead next to his car, with everything set up to look like a car-jacking gone wrong.

  No. It likely was Richter. And just like that the whistleblower was silenced.

  I stopped two blocks from the hotel and checked my gear. My phone with its recording app was tucked into the inside pocket of my sport coat, which also concealed the Glock 18 beneath my left armpit. After a quick text update to Poole and Quanta, I drove into the hotel lot and parked on the far side. The sky was dark, without a trace of moonlight, and things seemed quiet. I entered the front lobby, spotted the staircase, and went to the third floor. Room 322 was at the far end. I gave the quick tap sequence that Kyra was to listen for: three quick taps, pause, then one. The sound of the TV inside shut off and a few seconds later the peep hole went dark as someone looked through. I didn’t bother to react.

  The door opened as far as the security lock allowed, and a sensitive face peered through the opening.

  “Mother sent me,” was all I had to say. A corny code phrase, but one we figured the woman could easily memorize. With a look of relief, the door closed, the lock was released, and she let me in. “Make sure to lock that again,” I said as I walked in.

  The room was in disarray, with a suitcase sitting on one bed and half of its contents scattered around. There were numerous takeout food items on the round desk and three empty beer bottles that were in sight. A fourth was about half-full.

  “I’m so glad you’re here,” she said. “I’m Kyra.”

  “Swan,” I said, shaking her hand. “Comfy?”

  “No.”

  I glanced at the food and beverages, then shrugged. “Okay. Anything I can do right now to make you more comfortable than the burgers and Bud Lights are capable of providing?” I started to add a snarky comment about not choosing a local microbrew, but what would that serve?

  “Oh,” she said and gave a nervous laugh. “I mean, yes, I’m comfortable enough here. I’m just not comfortable with the situation in general. I’m not used to hiding from people.”

  “Well, let’s talk about that.” I cleared a space from the room’s lone chair while she sat on one of the beds. In a few seconds I sized her up. Medium-length brown hair, about five-foot-five, sad eyes. I mean, hell, her boyfriend was dead and she was stashed in a hotel room. She fidgeted quite a bit, twisting a ring on her right hand, the kind of ring a woman inherits from a grandparent. And she never took her eyes off my face. It was the look of someone who desperately wants to believe you have answers. Unfortunately I was armed only with questions.

  “You’re here for two reasons,” I said. “One, the people we believe are responsible for Martin’s death may also be interested in you, now that the word is out you two were seeing each other.” She cringed at the mention of the boyfriend. “And two, you may or may not have some information about your former employer that could protect a lot more people than just yourself. In other words, Kyra, you’re a very important person right now.”

  She responded with a deep breath. I could sugarcoat everything, but time was of the essence.

  “I need to know more about Martin.”

  “Marty,” she said.

  “Okay, Marty. How long did he work for LoGo?”

  Kyra looked up and to the right for a few seconds. “Three years, I think. I was there 18 months.”

  “What exactly was his job?” A lot of this was in the original report; I wanted to hear it from her.

  “He was an engineer in wind power. His main job was helping to develop storage systems.”

  “Storing electrical power from the turbines, right?”

  She nodded. “Yeah. That’s a tricky thing, and everyone thinks they can do a better job of it with more time. But in the last year they’d taken him away from a lot of that and asked him to spend time on something else.”

  “What was that?”

  “Something about upgrading the grid system. Like an overhaul to make it sturdier or something.”

  So far this jibed with what I’d been told. “And he didn’t like doing this new job?”

  “I think he liked it because it was something different. But then he started coming home in a weird mood. Very frustrated.”

  “Frustrated why?”

  She looked up and to the right again. This was o
bviously her data-recall look. “He didn’t tell me everything he was doing, but at one point he came home pissed because he said he didn’t trust them. Something about how they were exploring things that had nothing to do with providing clean energy for the country. And that’s when I think he also got a little scared.”

  “I’d like to know more about that.”

  “Well—” She stopped and looked embarrassed. “I’m sorry. Would you like one of the beers? I have two left.”

  “I rarely turn down a beer. But keep talking.”

  She leaned over the far side of the bed and opened a cooler. She handed me a bottle and picked up her own half-empty one, taking a long pull.

  “Look, Marty wasn’t a hippie or anything. He wasn’t Vegan and he drove a big, gas-guzzling pickup, for Christ’s sake. But he approached clean energy from a rational, logical side. To him it just didn’t make sense to waste the potential we got from wind and solar. He knew it wasn’t as cost-effective as burning oil yet, but it would be with just a few more years of work. So that’s what he wanted to spend time on. And when Harning started asking him to do more of this other stuff—”

  “Wait. Who’s Harning?”

  “I don’t remember his first name. Marty just called him Harning. He’s one of the muckety-mucks in wind.”

  I smiled at the description as I made a note on my phone.

  “Anyway, Harning starting telling him they were going to study how grids could be defended against attack. Only Marty didn’t think it sounded very defensive.”

  “What did he think?”

  She finished her beer in two swigs. “They kept asking him to predict things that could knock out power grids. They supposedly were working backwards, to assess what could damage a power station and then work to protect it. But, you know, Marty said it wasn’t that they were doing it; it was how they were doing it. He told me one night, ‘Something about this is screwy.’”

  I sat still, waiting for more.

  “Then, about a month ago he called me and said he’d had an impromptu review from Harning and some other people from the top. They asked him lots of questions about the progress he was making, and why he seemed reluctant about things.” She grew more agitated. “I told him if he was worried about it then he should talk to someone. So he did.” She looked down at the ring. “Then two days later he was dead.”

  Ah, I hadn’t thought about that. Kyra wasn’t just mourning her boyfriend; she felt responsible. She’d encouraged him to speak out and now was convinced it had gotten him killed. Damn, the poor thing was still in her 20s. She was supposed to be enjoying life, not hiding out, guzzling beer, and battling guilt.

  Well, no sense in coddling her. She very well may have steered him toward the meeting that got him offed — but she couldn’t have known that would happen. No, Kyra wasn’t the problem here. A stout little asshole named Richter was to blame. And his creepy employers, too.

  My pulse began to race, the way it does whenever I get in action mode. And that’s regardless of whatever body I’m traipsing around in. It’s why I know I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing with my life. Well, my lives. Chasing down bad people isn’t simply about justice. For me it’s mostly a competitive thing. I can’t stand to see shitheads win, and the bigger the shithead the more I want to crush them. Quanta once told me, at the end of one of her meditations, that I was skilled but undisciplined. How’d she put it? Swan, you lack tonal harmony. It was her way of saying I rushed in headlong too many times instead of allowing nature’s vibrations to guide me.

  Oh, that would be nice and all, but people like Richter and Beadle — and me, really — live in contrast to the peaceful notion of harmony. We are the dissonance of the world, the clashing notes disrupting the symphony and giving you a goddamned headache. And truth be told, you better be glad there are people like me on our side who clash with the best of them or else your happy little recital would end with an augmented sixth. Play a C and a G sharp at the same time and watch your cat run out of the room.

  Enough with the musical metaphors. My blood was getting up.

  “Did Marty share any specific details with you?” I asked. “Anything that could help someone looking to verify his suspicions?”

  Another look up and to the right, only this time she stayed that way for a long time. Then she said, “He said they were very curious about the damage caused by something called an EMT, I think.”

  I didn’t want to lead the witness, but I had to know. “Could that have been an EMP?”

  “Maybe. I just got EMT in my head, but that could’ve been it.”

  There it was. The freaks at LoGo were indeed investigating the idea of how an electromagnetic pulse could disrupt power. Martin had asked one too many questions, had spoken up to the authorities, and it got him killed. Now all we had to do at Q2 was put all of the pieces together and make sure nothing progressed any further.

  I sipped my beer and looked at the muted television, which I just now noticed was playing a documentary about the royal family. Damn, I’d have to send Christina a note to find it and record it for me.

  “Okay, Kyra, listen to me and really pay attention,” I said. “I don’t want you to worry yourself sick. Things will be just fine. But for tonight we’re going to keep you here and then move you to another spot out of town tomorrow. Can you do me a big favor and stay radio silent for a while? No social media, no texting friends, nothing. Just lay low, drink some beer, and find out what William and Harry are up to in London. Don’t leave the room. If you need anything, you text me and I’ll get it. Understood?”

  She nodded, but there were tears in her eyes and I couldn’t blame her. I’d just told her there was nothing to worry about, but then proceeded to lay out ground rules that made it sound like a swarm of assassins would be upon her the minute she stepped outside. But what can you do? Besides, Richter wouldn’t be able to find her for a while. And by then we’d be a step ahead, hopefully hunting him.

  Which is exactly what I needed to be doing. Nobody at Q2 had officially given the word to take out anyone; this was, after all, still technically a fact-finding assignment. But when you know, you just know. Richter had probably killed Marty, and he wasn’t in Portland to see a Trail Blazers game. The twins likely weren’t sure about me as Conrad Dean of Locker-Mann, but just the fact I’d made a mystery stop at another hotel in Telluride and then found and ditched their listening device was enough to sound their own alarms. Both sides were now on alert.

  I stood up and placed my beer on the round table. “I have some errands to run. Keep the door locked. Where’s the other key card they gave you when you checked in?” She picked it up from the nightstand and handed it to me. “Great, now unlock your phone and give that to me, too.” I added my number to her contacts and handed it back. “Here. I’m under Mother. Anything weird happens, or if you have any questions, call or text. Don’t use my name or say anything else. Just Mother. Cool?”

  “Okay.”

  We walked to the door and she surprised me by giving me a hug. The poor thing was terrified, so I hugged her back. “Everthing’s gonna be fine,” I said in her ear.

  Chapter Twelve

  I grabbed my bag from the car, went to the front desk, and checked in under the ID that Poole had used to make the reservation. The manager tapping away at the computer was a younger guy, maybe 25. His name tag was engraved with Michael M., and it proudly displayed that he was from Tyler, Texas. Good ol’ MM from TT. I’ve always liked that little extra touch on name tags. A conversation starter and all that.

  We exchanged the usual pleasantries; he was curious about where I was from and how I was enjoying Oregon so far. I told him I had yet to see it in daylight and Michael supplied the required nod and chuckle. In his Texas drawl he wished me a pleasant stay and reminded me of the free breakfast tomorrow, right over there, from 6:30 to 9. With my disregard for healthy food is it any surprise that I really dug hotel waffles?

  On the second floor I found room 2
07 and dropped onto the bed. It had been a long day after a long night and I needed a few minutes to just be prone.

  The smart thing to do would be to upload my conversation with Kyra, but it was recorded in an audio file and already in the system at Q2 HQ in Washington. The only thing an upload would add now would be my personal impressions. But I’d completed two uploads in the last 36 hours and just didn’t think it was critical at the moment. Right now I just wanted 30 minutes to keep my feet up and not have anything crawling around inside my head.

  I did call Christina, but it went to voicemail. The message I left was syrupy-sweet, the kind you’d never want your buddies to hear, but I meant every word. She was my goddess and had been since the day we met. One of the more embarrassing moments of my life, since at the time I was on a dinner date with another woman and Christina was the head chef. But that’s a story for another time.

  I tried surfing around the various TV channels but the show about the Royals was over and nothing else was worth the noise. I shut it off.

  My thoughts rolled over to the case at hand and my conversation with Kyra. Her life had been turned inside out, she was scared, and who could blame her? When you do my job it’s easy to forget that not everyone is used to the nasty side of humanity. Kyra was up against some of the nastiest.

  But we’d have her out of town by noon tomorrow. All she had to do was sit tight. I couldn’t see how Richter would ever be able to find her in such a short time, unless Kyra slipped up somehow. A new location couldn’t erase the nightmare she’d been through, but it might provide a modicum of comfort.

  That train of thought took me to the hit man and what would have to be done about him. Dealing with Richter created an interesting dilemma. When you ran afoul of Q2 you generally weren’t arrested; we’re not a police force, we’re enforcers. Someone causes serious trouble, they get serious consequences, and the public won’t ever know about it. It’s the judge/jury/executioner combo that’s generally frowned upon and yet has saved your ass more times than you could ever imagine. You’re welcome, not only for the ass-save, but for doing it quietly so you don’t have to feel guilty about it. There’s value in that.