The Blackout

by K J Kalis

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Cute, very cute.”

  * * *

  Kat started to hum as she drove home. She realized she was starved and had just enough time to grab a sandwich on the way to pick up Jack from school. She pulled into the school parking lot and waited, eating a few french fries from the bag. As she took a sip of water, Jack came bounding out of the building. “Where are the dogs?”

  “Sorry, pal, I’ve been running around all day. They’re waiting for you at home.” Jack loved it when Woof and Tyrant came in the car to pick him up from school. They’d lick him and sniff him and then pant happily as they drove home. “I did bring you something else, though. There’s a burger and fries in the bag for you.”

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  On the drive home, Jack told her about his day, his classes and how the new math they were working on seemed hard. Kat half-listened, her mind racing to the bugs she had planted in Sal’s office. Stephanie had given her a pair of them. “Planting two is better than one. You’ll get better reception. But just know that places like these might scan for them. They could be detected,” Kat remembered her saying. “But if someone finds them, there’s no way to trace them back to us. I’ve made sure of it.”

  Kat tried to refocus on what Jack was saying and asked him a few questions about his friends and his homework as they pulled in the driveway. On the mountains well behind their house there was smoke. “Mom, is that a fire?” Jack asked, leaning forward to see through the windshield.

  “Yup. That’s far away, though. Probably at least thirty miles. The fire will burn up the hillside. I learned that from Freddie.”

  “The guy that was at our house the other day?”

  “That’s the one.”

  Knowing that Freddie said the fire would move the other direction seemed to calm Jack. He jumped out of the Jeep as soon as it stopped and ran into the house. She could hear the dogs barking. Kat walked out of the garage and stared up at the fire. There was a crown of smoke on the mountain. She said a silent prayer for the people and animals up there, hoping that no homes or farms would be damaged.

  The minute that Kat got into the house she started dinner, just some chicken to grill and vegetables. She wanted to be able to get to her computer to see if there had been any interesting comments from Sal Manko. She grabbed her computer and put it on the kitchen table, quickly pulling up the link that Van had sent her. She clicked and launched the audio file to see if it was working. Within a few seconds she could hear Sal Manko’s gravelly voice over the speakers, “No, we have to suspend that project. There’s nothing in the budget for it…” It didn’t seem that he was talking about Theresa, unless he was talking in code, of course, but she’d know more as she listened. She paused the audio, knowing it would save recordings for weeks at a time — or at least that was what Stephanie had told her. She’d start listening later when it was quiet and she could take notes.

  By the time she got the prep work for dinner done, Van was home. “How did things go?”

  “So far so good. The audio is working.”

  “That’s good news.” He put his arm around her shoulder while she chopped the last vegetables for the salad. “Feel like a little listening date after dinner?”

  “Yeah. Especially if you would be so kind as to throw this chicken on the grill.”

  “Absolutely.” The dogs trotted outside, following Van and the smell of the chicken. She saw him from outside the kitchen window, tossing a frisbee to the dogs while he waited for the chicken to cook. A wave of gratefulness flowed over her.

  The last few years had been difficult with the loss of Jack’s dad and the betrayal that came along with it. Kat had gotten through it, but only with the help of Van, and her therapist, of course. Van had been supportive in a way that she didn’t expect. He allowed her to work as much as she’d like or as little. If she needed to travel, he made sure Jack was taken care of. He even had encouraged her to go to England when the Army needed her help after a cathedral fire took out an intelligence communications hub. He was steady and happy, quite the opposite of her first husband, who was moody and grim. Once she knew Steve had been paid to marry her, his behavior made a lot more sense. She looked outside the window again, seeing Van pull the chicken off the grill. Not only was he nice and stable and encouraging and had become a dad to Jack, but he was also handsome. She looked down, feeling her cheeks flush. She was lucky, very lucky.

  Van called for Jack when he brought the chicken in. “Buddy, food’s ready!”

  Jack came running down the steps. “I think my homework’s done.”

  “Already? That was fast,” Van said.

  “Well, it’s maybe done.”

  Van ruffled his hair and said, “Listen, we’ll check it together after we eat, okay. Gotta keep up our strength.”

  “That’s right!” Jack piled his plate high and walked over to the table, Woof and Tyrant at his heels.

  “Down, you two,” Kat called to the dogs, making sure they minded their manners.

  After they said grace, they ate, Jack gobbling his food down so he could go finish his homework. “I’ll bring it down as soon as I’m done. I want to play video games.”

  Van looked at Kat, chewing a mouthful of chicken, “Well, at least he’s honest.”

  She smiled. “He is at that.” She finished her food and stood up from the table. “How about if I take care of the dishes and you supervise homework?”

  Van brought his plate over to her. “Sounds like a deal. Meet you back here for listening after? Say twenty minutes?”

  “It’s a date.”

  34

  Kat could hardly wait for Van to come down to start listening to Sal. She assembled the things that she and Van would need, a couple of notebooks, pens and a couple of bottles of water. She made him a cup of coffee and had it on the table when she heard footfalls coming down the steps. “I see you’re ready to go.”

  “I am. You?”

  “Yes. Homework has been accomplished. I told him we will come and get him when video game time is over.”

  “Perfect.

  Kat pulled up the link on her computer that allowed her to access the feed from Sal’s desk. She wished there was a way to tap his phone too, but she knew that other than the illegal methods of cloning phones, they’d need a legal wiretap. That wasn’t going to happen given the fact they were journalists and not in the FBI or local law enforcement.

  They started the recording from the beginning, just after Kat left the office. Kat leaned forward in her chair, her arms resting on the table. Van had crossed one foot over his knee, his feet barefoot, still in the same t-shirt and jeans he had worn at the office.

  The audio was crystal clear. Kat made a mental note to make cookies for Stephanie. She was the one who had all the gizmos that the reporters used. The only downside was that unless someone was in his office, they could only hear Sal, no one else.

  “I just had a visitor,” Kat heard Sal say. She motioned to Van, making her hands into the sign for a phone.

  “No, it was Theresa’s friend from baseball, Kat Beckman. Remember her?”

  There was a pause.

  “Yeah. She was all choked up about Theresa.”

  Another pause.

  “Sorry, yeah, I know it’s your wife. What are we doing about this?”

  A longer pause. Kat imagined Sal nodding and listening on his phone.

  “I know you were having trouble. Yeah, you told me. But do you know where she is? You don’t think this is related to the other issue we’ve been handling, do you?”

  The pause this time was the longest yet. Kat imagined that Bart was telling Sal something important, but what? What was the other issue that Sal had been handling?

  “Yeah, okay.” The phone call ended. Kat stopped the audio. “What do you think?”

  “I think there is something going on,” Van said. “Wish we could hear the other side of that conversation. Let’s keep at it.”

  The next
few hours went by quickly, Kat and Van taking half-hour turns listening and walking away for a little while. During Van’s turn, she went upstairs to check on Jack. He was in bed, reading a book, Woof and Tyrant sitting next to him. “Hey buddy, how are things? Ready to get some rest?”

  “I don’t know.” Jack set the book down next to him, upside down so he wouldn’t lose his place.

  Kat could tell there was something on his mind. One thing Jack was not good at was covering up how he felt. In a way, she knew that was what had gotten him through so much of the trauma he had faced at an early age — kidnapping, the loss of his dad — these were significant losses for a child. Kat sat down on the edge of the bed, telling him to scoot over. “What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Are you sad?”

  “Maybe a little.”

  “Do you want to tell me about it?” Jack leaned his head against her shoulder. Kat put her arm around him. He didn’t speak. “Maybe you could tell Woof and Tyrant about it?” Jack’s therapist told Kat when feelings were too hard for Jack to face, it might be easier for him to talk to the dogs.

  Jack whispered, “If I were talking to Woof and Tyrant, I’d tell them about Mike.”

  “What would you tell them?”

  “That I was talking to him and he’s sad. He misses his mom.” Jack looked up at her, his hair flopping over his forehead. “I don’t want to lose you, Mom.”

  Kat squeezed Jack’s shoulder. “Oh buddy, I’m not going anywhere. When did you talk to Mike?”

  “We were playing video games together tonight.”

  “He doesn’t know where his mom is?”

  Jack shook his head. “No. He texted his dad and asked, but his dad hasn’t been home either. Just Louisa, their housekeeper.”

  Kat met Louisa a couple of times when she had gone to pick up Mike for baseball or drop him off. She seemed pleasant enough. “Hmmm. Well, I tell you what. Tomorrow, Van and I will look into it again. We will see what we can find out.”

  A small smile crept over Jack’s face. “Thanks, Mom. I don’t want Mike to be sad.”

  Kat got up off the bed. “I’m sure everything is fine. Maybe his mom had to take a trip or something.” She felt bad for lying, but there was no point in letting Jack worry. She smoothed the covers over him and marked the place in the book where he was. She leaned over and kissed him on the forehead. She looked at the dogs and said, “Stay.” She wanted Jack to have the dogs nearby until he fell asleep.

  When she went downstairs, Van was waiting for her. He had stopped the recording. “You need to hear this.” He pointed to the feed. “Sal left his office for a few hours, so it was quiet. Then he had some meeting about facility management. I fast-forwarded through that. Listen to this.” He leaned over her computer and pressed play.

  “I thought you left for the day.”

  Kat heard the voice and realized it wasn’t Sal’s. It belonged to Bart.

  Sal said, “With what you’ve gotten yourself into, I’ve been practically living here.”

  In the background, Kat could hear the door to Sal’s office close. “Let’s try to keep it down, okay?” Bart said.

  “If you are down here trying to see if there is anything new, you’re wasting your time.”

  “You don’t have anything on Theresa?”

  “Nothing. It’s like she’s dropped off the face of the planet. I’ve got three private investigators working on it. They’ve got nothing.”

  “No airline tickets, use of the credit cards, nothing? No money withdrawn from my bank accounts?”

  “Nothing, Bart. She’s disappeared. There’s nothing on her phone. We’ve checked her emails, nothing there. I even called in a favor to pull her texts.”

  Kat looked at Van, her eyes wide.

  “Did you find anything in them?” Bart asked.

  “In her texts? A little something. She found the blue dots. Didn’t know what they were.”

  Kat could hear a noise like footfalls. She wondered if Bart was pacing his office.

  “What? How did she find those?”

  “Based on the texts, it looks like she took a picture of what was on your tablet and decided to do a little research. She knew there was something wrong. Put together that three of the most recent wildfires were at those locations.”

  Bart lost his temper and yelled a string of foul words to share his displeasure. “How is that possible? Why would she even care?”

  “Maybe because you locked her out for too long. Theresa’s not a dumb woman, Bart. You forgot that. She was probably suspicious about all the time you were spending away from home. Affairs, that kind of stuff. That’s probably what she was worried about.”

  “Well, she shouldn’t be prying. Who did she send the texts to?”

  “The reporter that was here today. Kat Beckman.”

  “You’re kidding me. Now we’ve got the FBI and a reporter breathing down our necks. That’s not going to help us get this situation resolved.”

  A chill ran down Kat’s spine. They had put together the pieces pretty quickly. She wondered if Sal had known the whole time she was sitting in his office that she had the information Theresa had sent her. The fact that he didn’t let on told Kat how careful he was. Van paused the recording. “They know that you got the texts, Kat. This game has just gotten a lot more dangerous.”

  Kat nodded. “Sal never let on that he knew.”

  Van stood up and started pacing. “Why would he? The more he knows and the less you know, the better, from his perspective, that is.”

  Kat took a sip of water. “So, they know that Theresa is missing. Yasmin must have contacted them too.”

  “Yeah, but that doesn’t explain it all, does it? There’s still something else — another problem they are trying to fix. I think that might be what started his whole mess.” Van reached over and closed her computer. “Let’s give this a break. We can hit it again tomorrow, okay?”

  Kat nodded. Although she wanted to continue to listen to Sal, she needed a rest. She changed into a pair of leggings and an oversized t-shirt, made a cup of chamomile tea and snuggled up next to Van on the couch in their family room. All the lights were out, the only glow from the television. Stan Lemmon, the local meteorologist, was on the television, looking pale as usual. “Folks, unfortunately, the Santa Ana winds aren’t going to be letting up any time soon according to our forecast,” he said. “No matter where you live, take care to look for wildfires starting and watch for evacuation orders.”

  As soon as he finished, the next story was about the church that had burned. Freddie’s red hair on the screen, “Look! It’s Freddie!” Kat said, putting her cup of tea down on the table in front of her.

  The reporter, a serious-looking man with dark curly hair said, “This is Chief Arson Investigator for Cal Fire, Freddie Henderson. Investigator, what can you tell us?”

  “This was a devastating fire that basically leveled the structure.”

  Kat tilted her head to the side. Freddie didn’t even sound like himself. He must have been using his best television interview voice.

  The reporter continued, “Why is the arson unit out looking at this fire?”

  “It’s procedure with a fire this size.”

  Kat shook her head. The amount of damage to the church reminded her of the Stratham Cathedral fire. She had gone to England after a similarly devastating fire to help Hannah Carter, her contact at the Army. They had an intelligence hub under the old cathedral. Her mind shot back to the smell of the fire, the beams of wood that were strewn about like a child’s toys throughout the stone structure. That had been arson, too, but for a very different reason. That was also where she had met Tyrant and where her handler lost her life. A chill ran down her spine. She said a silent prayer for the pastor and his family. She hoped they were okay and out of danger.

  As she snuggled closer to Van, the meteorologist came back on the air. “Sorry to interrupt the broadcast, folks, but we have a new wildfire war
ning for the Sauk Valley area. Be on the lookout for any problems there. And, we’ve just heard from Palm Coast Electric & Power that they will be continuing the blackouts, so if you live in the area, you may see a power outage coming your way. Check their website for more information.”

  Kat got up and looked out the window. More wildfire risk and a blackout coming their way. She wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly feeling cold.

  * * *

  The next morning dawned with no wildfire and no blackout. Kat got up as usual and got Jack out the door for school. She took the dogs with her for a run, scanning the hillsides for any areas of potential danger, wildfire or otherwise. She didn’t see any. Once she got back to the house, she took a shower and came back downstairs wearing a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, her blond hair still damp and hanging around her face. The fact that Theresa was still missing was upsetting. She opened her computer to listen to the bugs that she had placed the day before in Sal Manko’s office, wanting to catch up to where he was in her day. She clicked on the link but got nothing. She checked her connection, but there was no audio to find. It had stopped. She frowned, wondering what happened.

  Her phone rang. It was a number she didn’t recognize, but she decided to answer. “Kat, it’s me,” Van said.

  “What number is this?”

  “I had to borrow it. I was just arrested by the FBI.”

  * * *

  Kat quickly dried her hair, put on some colored lip balm and changed into a different shirt. She grabbed the keys to the Jeep and headed to the address Van gave her while he was on the phone.

  The FBI offices took up several floors of a large building about a half-hour from their house. She got to the front desk and was told to wait. After a few long minutes, a short man with brown hair and arms that clearly looked like he worked out called her name. “Beckman?”