The Drummers by Tricia Fields

Author:Tricia Fields [Tricia Fields]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Severn House
Published: 2020-11-30T00:00:00+00:00

FIFTEEN

After a mostly sleepless night, Josie was up before five the next morning and at the office with a packet of stale donuts by six. She found an envelope with her name on it lying on top of the stacks of file folders on her desk. She opened it and found a handwritten note that said:

Josie,

It’s been a tough week. Let’s discuss the case over a homemade dinner tonight at 6:00. My place. Just let Helen know if you can’t make it.

Hang in there,

Simon O’Kane

She sat down at her desk and reread the note several times, trying to figure out his angle. It didn’t sound as if he was asking her on a date because he had involved his secretary, Helen. Maybe he had specifically used Helen’s name to make it clear that it wasn’t a date. And then she wondered what she thought about a date with Simon. Aside from the fact that he was her supervisor and the newly elected mayor, he was attractive, intelligent, and she was certain he came with quite a backstory.

Josie folded the note and slipped it into her pocket, forcing herself to put her personal thoughts aside for the pile of work in front of her.

As she made her way through a dozen phone messages, she came across two from Mark Davis, her FBI contact from the counterterrorism division. The first had come in at 9:00 a.m. the day before, and asked her to return his call when she got a minute. The second message, received later in the day, had asked her to call his cell immediately.

At six-thirty she called and he immediately picked up.

‘Did I catch you eating your breakfast cereal?’ she asked.

‘I’m already on the subway, two cups of coffee down. Hang on.’

Josie listened to the jostling of people in the background, doors opening and closing, and next exits being announced. He finally came back on the phone and said, ‘You sent me down the rabbit hole on this electric grid situation.’

She put him on speakerphone so she could type notes while he talked. ‘I figured you were calling about The Drummers and the two shootings,’ she said.

‘I’ve been following the news on that too. Suspects?’

‘Several, but we’re waiting on the autopsy and ballistics.’

‘That’s actually not why I called. We’ve got bigger issues.’

‘Bigger than two murders in a town of 2,500 people?’

‘Hear me out and then you decide. I used some connections to get me in contact with an agency lead at the Department of Energy in DC. I explained to him what happened in West Texas, and my own concerns about the EX-Sovereigns. He wasted no time. He put me in contact with a guy named Jason Castro who works at DOE’s Integrated Joint Cybersecurity Coordination Center. He was well aware of the EX-Sovereigns. He says they’ve made it their mission to map the electric, oil and natural gas networks across the US. He believes they have a plan to take down the system, but we only know bits and pieces about the when and how.

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