Below Zero (36 page)

Coon and Joe exchanged looks. Joe could tell Coon would make the deal. Portenson was the wild card.

“He’s a fugitive,” Portenson said. “And he pisses me off.”

Joe didn’t push. He waited. He ran the scenario through his mind.

Finally, he saw Portenson fire a punch through the air and heard him say, “Okay, damn you. We’ll confine our operations to the Stensons only. We won’t even think about who is down there with your cell phone.”

“You’ve burned me before,” Joe said. “You better not dream of doing it again. Remember when you told me,
‘Never trust a fed’
?”

“In a moment of triumph,” Portenson conceded. “I used to have them. They’ve pretty much gone away since I met Joe Pickett and Nate Romanowski.”

Joe chuckled at that. “So it’s a deal? I have your word?”

Coon said, “Yes.”

Portenson sighed and said, “Yes.”

Joe said, “I’ll make the call. Show me how to do it on this headset.”

Coon switched the channel again and gestured toward a keypad. Joe punched in the numbers. He heard the phone ring. As it did, he looked up and saw that Portenson had switched to the same channel so he could listen in. Joe reached up and snatched the headphones off Portenson’s head and shook them at Coon to warn him against trying the same thing.

Nate said, “Speak.”

“It’s Joe. I’m in the FBI chopper on the way to Rangeland. Do you have the Stensons in sight?” He turned his head so Portenson couldn’t read his lips. The agent was furious.

Nate hesitated.

“It’s okay,” Joe said. “I have a deal with Portenson not to arrest you.”

He heard Nate snort. Then: “I’ve got the Stensons under surveillance. They’ve got an old rancher with them, too. They stole his truck, made him drive. I followed them all the way.”

“Great work. What are they doing now?”

“They’re parked outside a bar. The old rancher and Stenko are still in the truck. Robert went inside.”

“What’s he doing?”

“How should I know?”

“Nate, the girl isn’t April. We don’t know who she is or if April’s alive. Stenko is the only man who could shed some light on it, so we need to keep him in one piece.”

“Gotcha.”

“Look,” Joe said, speaking very slowly and deliberately. He suspected someone might be listening in, perhaps at FBI headquarters. He chose his words carefully. “The feds have locked in on my cell phone. They know
exactly
where you are. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

A beat. “Yes.”

“We’re thirty minutes away.”

Nate said, “I’ll be ready.”

Joe hoped so.

He killed the connection and handed Portenson’s headphones back to him. Portenson angrily jammed them on his head, switched to the internal channel, and mouthed, “That was a rotten thing to do.”

Joe didn’t hear it because he hadn’t switched back to channel A.

AFEW MINUTES LATER, Joe could see that Portenson was in an animated conversation with someone. The way the agent nodded and gesticulated, it was obvious he was excited. Even over the engine noise, he heard Portenson say, “
That’s
what I’m talking about,” and again pump his fist in the air.

Joe looked to Coon, who indicated that Joe should switch back to channel A.

“What’s he so cranked up about?” Joe asked. “Did they locate the Stensons?”

“Not yet.”

“Then what’s the deal?”

Coon’s expression was noncommittal. “Our analysts suggest that the Stensons might have picked Rangeland for a reason, that their stopping there might not be random.”

“Yes?”

“If your theory holds up, that the Stensons are picking targets with large carbon footprints—with the exception of Rawlins and the ranch, where the reason was drugs and money—then Rangeland has quite a big prize.”

“It does?” Then it came to him. North of Rangeland was Esterbrook River Station—a power plant with three cooling towers that emerged from the sprawling high-grass prairie. “The power plant?”

Coon nodded his head and shot a glance toward Portenson to make sure his boss didn’t see them talking.

“I’ve been listening in on the calls,” Coon said, consulting his legal pad where he’d been jotting down notes. “Our guys and gals have been working hard. According to them, the Esterbrook River Station is a 1,650-megawatt power plant fueled by 135 coal cars per day. The coal is from Gillette and it’s shipped down here 24/7. The plant burns 135 train cars of coal—that’s 24,000 tons—
a day.
”

Joe had seen the coal trains for years parallel to I-25. He’d been oblivious to the fact that they all had a single destination.

Coon said, “The plant provides power to two million people in Wyoming, Montana, the Dakotas, Colorado, Nebraska, Minnesota, and Iowa and feeds two of the three national power grids. But this is what may interest Robert: ERS emits approximately
thirteen million
metric tons of CO
₂
per year.”

Joe stared at him.

“Yeah, I said thirteen million metric tons per year. That’s a lot. And that doesn’t include the carbon produced by the coal trains or the coal mines.”

Joe looked out the window. The lights of Rangeland were a creamy wash on the southern horizon. But out across the dark terrain as far as he could see were individual ranch and farmhouses, single pole lights, outbuildings with lights on. If something happened to the power plant, everything would go dark. “So what’s Portenson so happy about?” Joe asked.

Coon waited a few seconds to speak, as if choosing his words carefully. “If the Stensons are going after that plant, it’s domestic terrorism. That’s what the FBI is supposed to be doing these days. It’s Job One. If Portenson can turn around the debacle this morning into stopping a massive act of domestic terrorism—”

Joe finished Coon’s thought: “He can write his ticket out of here to anyplace he wants to go.”

“Right.”

“What if Stenko and Robert just stopped to get gas?”

“Please don’t mention that possibility to my boss right now.”

Joe had been to Rangeland several times. It was a small agricultural town of not quite 4,000 people. It was low in elevation compared to most of the state, which was why there were farms instead of ranches. The terrain was flat and fertile all the way east to the Nebraska border.

As they roared south, Joe again looked down at what made Portenson so energized. The power plant was isolated but lit up like a Christmas display against the dark prairie. The three towers reached high into the sky and were illuminated in the darkness. He could see a train filled with coal heading toward it, and another train just behind the first. This is where it began, he thought. Coal was burned to superheat boilers, which turned river water into steam. The steam turned giant turbines that generated electricity and sent it screaming through transmission lines toward end users in eight states. Most of those users—like Joe—rarely thought about how the electricity got to his home or how it came about. All they—and he—knew was that when they flipped a switch, the light came on. The power came from
somewhere,
and he was looking at it.

Except when it didn’t.

Joe frowned to himself, said to Coon, “How in the hell could two guys from Chicago sabotage a power plant?”

Coon shrugged, said, “We don’t know. But we’re going to stop them before they do.”

And Joe realized what
really
made Portenson so happy. Thanks to Joe’s initial theory, the FBI had focused on Robert and the environmental angle. Things had fallen into place. The analysts were not only connecting the crimes, they were anticipating what the Stensons would do next. Coal-fired power plants with massive carbon dioxide emissions were a natural target. It all played out and fit the pattern. And Portenson was in the catbird seat. He’d be able to avert the plot before anything bad happened. He’d get the credit. Even if the Stensons
were
in Rangeland to buy gas.

The fly in the ointment, Joe thought, was if Stenko or Robert started talking after they were arrested and threw too much doubt on the FBI’s theories. If they denied ever targeting the power plant. Then Joe realized what else worked in Portenson’s favor. He was pretty sure that the Stensons wouldn’t be alive to talk. Not with Robert’s new propensity to try and shoot his way out of every situation and Stenko’s fatal cancer.

Which meant that Joe would need to get to Stenko before Portenson did.

 

 

 

AS THE PILOT negotiated with the Rangeland sheriff on where to land and Coon arranged for vehicles with the police department, Portenson turned in his seat and said to Joe, “You’ve got a call on channel C.”

His stomach knotted as he turned the dial two clicks. Joe thought:
Marybeth. Janie Doe has taken a turn for the worse.

Governor Rulon said, “Finding you was not so easy. How is it going?”

“Not great.”

“You don’t have to tell me that. I got a briefing from DCI and between these bad guys you’re chasing and the FBI, there are bodies all over my state from Rawlins to Devils Tower.” He didn’t sound like he was in a good mood.

“It’s been rough,” Joe said. “But we may finally be closing in on them.”

Rulon acted like he didn’t hear Joe. He continued, “Tell Agent Portenson that Wyoming has the smallest population of all the states. He and his minions are doing serious damage on our census count. Those are citizens and voters. I mean they
were
citizens and voters. At this rate we’ll lose a seat in Congress
and
our federal funding if he keeps up with all the bodies.”

By the set of Portenson’s jaw, Joe could tell he was once again listening in.

“He just heard you,” Joe said.

“Good! I figured he might be eavesdropping on a private conversation without a warrant.”

This time, Portenson ripped his own headphones off.

“He’s gone,” Joe said.

“So tell me, did you find the girl you were looking for?”

Joe briefed him on the situation.

Rulon said, “Unbelievable. So you think these bad guys might know where the girl you’re looking for is located?”

“Maybe,” Joe said.

“So where are you now?”

“We just got cleared to land in Rangeland. The FBI thinks the Stensons may be going after the power plant.”

“Jesus Christ! They had better not be!”

“I don’t see it,” Joe said, making sure Coon wasn’t listening in, either. He wasn’t. “I just can’t imagine they can waltz their way in there and disrupt the electricity. These Stensons are not geniuses, and one of them may be terminally sick. But that doesn’t mean somebody might not get hurt.”

“But the feds are coordinating with local law enforcement?”

“They appear to be.”

“Will miracles never cease.”

Joe shot glances at Coon, who was obviously engaged in another conversation, and Portenson, who took a cue from Coon and was adjusting his headset back on. Joe saw Portenson switch channels to Coon’s frequency. They were getting information from someone that was making them both sit up straight.

“Something’s going on,” Joe said. “Coon and Portenson are getting new information.”

“What?”

“I think I know, but I can’t say.”

Rulon said, “My lights are still on. So the Stensons haven’t done anything to the power plant.”

The ground rose up and Joe felt one of the skids touch the field. They were landing on the north side of town in an empty cornfield. He could see several police department vehicles parked on a service road beyond a barbed-wire fence.

“Sir,” Joe said, “we’ve landed. I’ll call you back as soon as I have something to report.”

“Keep the lights on, Joe. When the power goes out, bad things happen. Streetlights go out; computers go down; home oxygen units fail. Innocent people die, Joe.”

“Got it.”

“Plus, I’m watching a football game.”

“I’ll do my best,” Joe said, rolling his eyes.

Rulon said, “I hope you find your girl.”

“Me too, sir. Thank you again for letting me pursue this.”

“Don’t mention it. Besides, it sounds like it’s turning into something much bigger than anticipated, something you seem to have a penchant for. I bet being a normal game warden sounds pretty good to you right now.”

“It does. But I nailed the Mad Archer yesterday.”

Rulon said, “Again? Good work!”

 

 

 

WHEN BOTH SKIDS
were firmly on the ground, Portenson turned in his seat and gestured for Joe to get out first. He was happy to comply. He almost didn’t notice that Coon hadn’t unbuckled his safety belt or that the pilot wasn’t turning off the rotors.

His boots thumped the ground, and he clamped his hat on his head with his hand to save it from the rotor wash. He felt more than heard the hatch close behind him.

He turned as the motor roared and the helicopter lifted off. Behind the Plexiglas, Portenson waggled his eyebrows and waved good-bye with a sardonic smile on his face. Coon looked away, embarrassed.

Behind him on the edge of the field, the Rangeland police officers scrambled back into their cars and pulled out one by one and U-turned onto a gravel road that headed south. Joe sank to his haunches with one hand on his hat. He watched the taillights of the cars get smaller down the county road and the chopper move across the sky. He didn’t stand until it became quiet, as the
thump-thump-thump
of the rotors faded out.

Joe rubbed dust from his eyes and sighed a heavy sigh. Then he heard a dirt bike motor cough and come to life. A single headlight blinked through a hedgerow and turned toward him once the rider found an opening in the brush. Joe started walking toward the headlight.

Nate was wearing a ridiculous helmet that looked like a German army helmet. His face shield was pushed up on top but spattered with starbursts of insects. He looped around Joe and stopped the bike just ahead of him. The motor popped and spat as Nate gestured to Joe to get on behind him.