Second Guess (The Girl in the Box Book 39)

by Robert J. Crane

  Francine looked at Scout. Raised her eyebrows for some reason.

  Scout looked at her.

  Francine mouthed something.

  Scout cocked her head at her. What was she saying?

  “...this isn't what we decided,” Isaac said. “We were going to–”

  “Screw it,” Francine said, and lifted her hand. A bolt shot out–

  Isaac jerked as the lightning struck him in the chest, and he hit his knees–

  “Get him, Scout!” Francine shouted, leaping up and closing the distance to Isaac.

  Scout stared, dumbstruck.

  Get him! AJ shouted, and Scout lurched into motion.

  She grabbed Isaac as he spasmed; the electrical shock had short-circuited his nervous system and he was twisting and turning under the nerve pain.

  “Ah ha!” Francine crowed, lifting up his cell phone. “Now let's see what Isaac's been looking at when he's away.” Her eyes sparkled with lightning, and her grin widened. “Well, well, well...what do we have here?”

  The cell phone screen flared to life. On it was a strange display; numbers, letters. Scout stared, trying to decipher it.

  “Our boy Isaac has a stock portfolio,” Francine said, and sparkling blue light danced at her fingertips again. “And it looks like he's been investing against big oil.” Anger surged into her eyes. “You weren't doing this 'for the cause,' were you?”

  “I...I was trying to...finance a movement with that!” Isaac said between gritted teeth, his jaw locked down by the electricity. Scout was holding him against the ground, too.

  “Oh? Guess we'll just have to take your word for it...” She looked at Scout, then grinned. “Or do we?”

  What?

  Oh.

  “Yeah, you d–” Isaac started to say, then stopped as Scout placed her fingers on his face, skin-to-skin, in a way she never had when they'd been intimate that night. That lovely, lonely night.

  The burn at her fingertips started immediately. She didn't have to take everything; she was looking for one thing. For–

  Scout's nerves tingled, and the memory was right there. She pulled it from Isaac's mind with ease, then took her fingers off his skin, shaking her head. “It wasn't to fund an army or a movement. It was for him.” She curled her lips. “It was all for him.”

  Francine's lips curled in disgust, too, and she spat on him. “What about what he did with us?” Her eyes were burning. “What he told me about wanting to overthrow the structures of power?”

  Scout put her fingers back on his skin. The burn started immediately. It felt like she was flying, leaping forward in great jumps to the answer–

  She pulled her fingers off him again, felt the singing joy of her nerves, her skin, begin to wane. She didn't want to stop. “He was lying,” she said, feeling a little sick. “To both of us. He just wanted...” She couldn't finish.

  “What all dogs want,” Francine said in disgust.

  “I...I'm sorry...” Isaac said. He was drooling out the side of his mouth, immobilized by the electricity and the soul sucking. “I...didn't mean to...whatever I did...can't remember...”

  “Anything else we should know?” Francine asked.

  Scout obliged, putting her fingers back against his skin. That was really no challenge at all; it felt a lot better than even what they'd done that night. In fact, she sort of wished she'd skipped losing her virginity and gone straight to this. It would have been more fun and less painful.

  She pulled her fingers off seconds later, truly regretting stopping short this time. “He's hundreds of years old,” she said in disgust. “Born into a family of wealthy aristocrats.” She felt the urge to spit on him, to distance herself from him, but she couldn't compel herself to loose her grip because...damn, she still wanted to press her fingers against his skin again and finish the job. “He's spent his whole life drinking and dining and screwing his way through his family's fortune, and now it's all gone. This was his way of getting everything he wanted.” She made a face. “It was all a scam.”

  Francine squatted next to Scout over Isaac, not deigning to look at him. “We need his power, you know.”

  Scout looked right back at her. “Yes.”

  The two of them looked down, and Scout plunged her fingers against Isaac's skin before he even had a chance to rebut. He screamed – out loud, and in her head, but it was delightful, like her favorite song. Her skin burned, her fingers tingled, and it was “Ode-to-Joy-to-the-World” all through her body, the greatest thing she'd ever felt (other than that time with AJ).

  Yeah! AJ cheered her on. Do it! Make this prick die!

  Scout fell over when it was done, her own muscles gently spasming like she'd partaken of the most delectable physical activity and now was finished. She stared up at the bright, dawning sky, and a slow smile settled on her face.

  Francine's own grin pushed into view, and she lowered her head to Scout, gently rested it on her breastbone. She spoke into Scout's chest, and the vibrations from her speech seemed to go right through her shirt into Scout's heart.

  “So...what should we do now?”

  Scout just smiled. The answer was obvious, wasn't it?

  “Anything we want.”

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FOUR

  Sienna

  The ubiquitous FBI black SUVs carried us into Midtown Manhattan. It was deemed that there was nothing to see at the Morobishi nuclear station, or at least nothing worthy of our august attention, so we were ferried straight to the FBI command center in Midtown, where I was greeted with more than a few familiar faces.

  In a room populated by the most serious of federal law enforcement agencies, the MOST SERIOUSEST award had to go to Agent Li, who was staring at me with hate-filled eyes from the moment I got off the elevator. It had been something on the order of six years since last I'd worked with the angriest agent, yet here he was, none of the grudge between us forgotten.

  “Dickweed,” I said. He didn't offer his hand, I didn't offer mine.

  “Nice to see you're out of our ranks again,” Li said sourly as I walked past him, trying not to acknowledge him. “Not coming back again, are you? Because I'm kind of sick of seeing the agency treated like a revolving door for you.”

  “If you people would handle your business without me, I wouldn't have to keep coming back,” I said.

  “If you'd stop breaking the law, we could cut that whole, 'Chase Sienna' thing out of the cycle,” Li said. “But you won't. Because you can't.”

  “I can, Li,” I said, giving him a nasty smile. “Because I believe in the beauty of my dreams.” I fired off a single finger salute at him, and turned to the next person waiting for me in the impromptu receiving line. “Hello, Agent Shaw.”

  Special Agent in Charge Willis Shaw watched me as he always had when he was my boss – thoroughly unamused. “Nealon,” he grunted.

  “Just when you thought it was finally safe to come out of your office,” I said. “Have you missed me over these last few months? How long has it been since I left you for DC? Feels like forever.”

  “Not long enough,” Shaw said.

  “I know these feels,” Li muttered.

  “Agent Li,” Reed said. They didn't shake hands, either. Maybe Li was just a germaphobe.

  Nahhhh. He was a spiteful bastard, and I'd known it since the first time he arrested me, way back at the Minneapolis airport in 2012, when I was coming back from England and he made a dramatic show of...well, everything. Just to lord it over me. Maybe a bit because Zack had been his roommate and he considered me guilty of his murder. But mostly to lord it over me.

  “Your teammates are already here,” Shaw said, nodding at Olivia and Angel, who were waiting sedately at the table. Angel offered me a nod, and Olivia gave a sheepish wave, the kind of thing that sort of personified her. “If you'd like to take a seat, we can get started.”

  I debated making a joke but instead I just grabbed a chair next to Olivia. Reed filed in next to me and the rest of the crew sat down.

&
nbsp; “Since the attack on Morobishi,” Li said as someone dimmed the lights, bringing up a nice picture on the wall screen of the aftermath of the power plant fracas, “we've seen five smaller-scale eco-terrorist attack attempts. They all met with failure, largely due to our preparedness as well as various industry security efforts.” The pompous ass had a pointer and slapped it against the screen next to each bullet point.

  The douche had prepared a PowerPoint for our briefing. Because of course he had.

  “None of these attempts carried even the remotest seed of success within their very DNA,” Li said. “These people were hurried, unprepared, and generally a joke.” He paused for dramatic effect. “We cannot expect that trend to continue.”

  I sat up a little straighter; that was a humble admission, certainly more of one than I'd expected from Li, who'd always struck me as a swaggering jackass. “What do you mean?”

  He scowled at me, probably trying to figure out how I was being a dick to him. “These fast-moving copycats are laying on their operations with minimal planning. They're not great thinkers, and the consequence is that they're getting caught flat-footed. Copycats who might follow them, though, may be inspired – radicalized, even – by the current events. If they're more careful, less driven by passion, then their chances of success are greater than these foolish headlong charges.”

  “The charge almost worked at Morobishi,” Reed pointed out.

  “Several factors weighed in the favor of the terrorists at Morobishi,” Li said. “It was right in the middle of shift change for security personnel, and they got caught off guard by what I can only describe as a street gang with a shocking amount of chutzpah. These people knew what they were doing with their weapons. Preliminary identification of the bodies and investigation of their social media profiles suggest they were part of a left-wing militia, for lack of a better term. They'd been actively training with weapons for some time at a farm in upstate New York.”

  “So they just took their training and applied it to a chosen target,” I said. “Were they on your radar? As a group?”

  “No,” Li said. “They'd made no violent threats, and our investigation showed they planned nothing online. We had no warning to speak of. They kept absolutely airtight OpSec. One of the perps' mothers claimed that he was part of a variety of causes, but 'nothing that involved guns.'”

  “We believe their leader gave them marching orders just minutes before it went down to prevent leaks,” Shaw said. “They charged the gates and overcame security, managed to squeeze into the sensitive areas of the power station before lockdown could be initiated. Everything we have, though, suggests they had hacker help.”

  “That'd be from the electric lady fronting with these terrorists,” Jamal said. “I can show you the e-trail we followed, but it's gone pretty cold now.”

  “Our agents down in Kentucky managed to trace what you gave us already,” Li said. “They believe the phones were ditched somewhere in the wilderness. They're trying to scoop them up. Our cyber division is following the trail.” He nodded to the screen, and the slide changed, providing us a completely different picture – the screen of a brokerage account. “Using digital forensics to tie the cell phone of your lightning-wielding suspect to others used in proximity to it, we were able to identify this – a brokerage account belonging to one Isaac Hammond. It was trading in options against oil companies.”

  “Betting against big oil? Good strategy if you're in the middle of waging a war against them,” Augustus said. I looked sideways at him. “What? My degree's in business. I know stock markets.”

  “Wait, so their motive isn't actually eco-terrorism?” Scott Byerly asked.

  “His isn't,” Lethe said. “I know Isaac. He's old school – and old.” Her lips pursed in disapproval.

  “You know this suspect?” Li's eyes narrowed at her. “Who are you?”

  “She's my grandmother,” I said. “She's been around the meta world a while.”

  Li stared at her, scrutinizing her heavily. “Hm. Yeah. I see the resemblance to Sierra now.”

  “What was your experience with this suspect?” Shaw asked.

  “Nothing for about a century now,” Lethe said, arms folded, concentration intense. “But I knew him back in the old days. His parents were rich. Very old money, as many of our kind were. Marquess of...somewhere in Southern England. Isaac, though...he fell far from the tree. Wine, women, and song were his thing.” She frowned. “Not causes. And certainly not causes that would reduce his standard of living. He liked his creature comforts a little too much.”

  “How did he fall in with this movement, then?” Li asked.

  “A lot of the key movers of the environmental movement were raised affluent,” Lethe said. “Think about it – if you're broke-ass poor, you've got other things to worry about than global warming.”

  “Climate change,” Reed said.

  “I don't care what they call it these days,” Lethe said. “Point is, if you're living day to day, you're too busy trying to survive to bother yourself with the long-term consequences of fossil fuel usage.”

  “But you just said he wouldn't want to give up his affluence in order to join this crew,” I said. “Clearly, something's up if he's betting on them to do damage.”

  “Not really,” Lethe said coolly. “Like I told you before, Isaac was into wine, women, and song. The thing about heirs that spend on those things? Their money doesn't last, and when it's gone...well, Isaac's not handsome enough to get the wine, women or song he's become accustomed to on his own without the money. To me, this looks like a perfect way to refill his coffers and...” She shrugged. “...Use a colorful metaphor of your choosing to indicate what the women of this movement are apt to do for their charismatic, true-believing leader.”

  I tried to swallow a gulp and failed. “My contact with the succubus, Scout...she didn't seem to be cool with Isaac sleeping with lightning lady. In fact, it felt like quite the opposite.”

  “What contact did you have with her?” Shaw asked, flipping through a clipboard of notes. “Was this during the chase in the Dakotas?”

  “I've had two dreamwalks with her in the intervening time,” I said. “Once after Houston, and again last night.”

  Reed was nodding along; I'd told him about last night after our little heart to heart on the plane this morning. For the others, though, this might have come as a surprise.

  “Can I just point something out?” Augustus raised a hand. “This looks like the perfect symptom of every problem I have with this eco business. Here's the poor girls, putting their hearts into it, even putting out, fighting this fight that they believe in...and here's the wannabe rich dude behind them, not only screwing them both behind each other’s backs, but making a mint while doing so.” He shook his head looking at the screen. “Look at that scratch. If I had that kind of gain in my brokerage account, I wouldn't need to be humping my ass all over the country chasing these clowns.”

  It was a substantial amount. It looked to me like Isaac had made several million from nearly nothing in the last few days, and all while betting against companies he and the girls had taken a hammer to.

  “Can we talk about your contact with the suspect?” Li asked, and boy did he sound agitated.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Like I told the authorities in Houston shortly after I made contact, her name is Scout. No last name given.”

  “Texas DPS did not pass that along.” Li's hackles sounded like they were rising.

  “We had a mental battle first time around. I tried to intimidate her,” I said. “Didn't work. Last night, though...she just wanted to talk.”

  “What did you talk about?” Shaw asked. He looked mildly more under control than Li. But then, he was better at calmly dealing with my bullshit after playing boss to me for a few months.

  “Her motive, mostly,” I said. “I took some contemporaneous notes after the contact,” I waved them in the air, “which are all yours if you want them. Scout is a true believer. Worse, s
he's becoming more and more convinced that anyone who isn't part of the solution is the cause of the problem, and worthy of being treated as such.”

  Li carefully walked over to me with measured strides, and just barely kept himself from snatching the notes out of my hand. He took them a little more violently than he needed to, though, and I let him. He skimmed them. “Your handwriting is atrocious,” he pronounced snippily.

  “I was half-asleep when I wrote them. So sue me.”

  He looked like he wanted to do more than sue me. Instead, he thrust them out at some nameless agent. “Get these to profiling.” And off the agent went.

  “You can try and profile her if you want,” I said, “but I'm telling you she's on the edge. They are working their way up to doing worse than attacking stuff, which is what they've mostly done so far. Scout's rage is gut-level, and it's ugly and narcissistic. She's pissed that we've rejected her efforts, minimized them. She views it as a personal affront rather than a battle between ideas or warring philosophies, and she's getting into the us vs. them headspace of making everyone not woke to this ecological threat an enemy of the planet.”

  “That sounds like a heady dose of nihilism,” Reed mused.

  “No, they believe in it,” Lethe said. “But instead of it being viewed through the lens of science and reason, debating solutions and moving the dial, it's become a holy war – good versus evil.”

  “This isn't religious,” Reed said, frowning.

  “Isn't it?” She shrugged. “You see enough holy wars, you recognize that the name of the gods change but the behavior remains the same – one person saying another is irredeemably bad for their own reasons, and acting accordingly. Whether it's an actual god behind it or just a closely held belief, the effect is the same.”

  “That kind of opens up the possibilities of targets they could hit, though, right?” Jamal asked. Of course he had his laptop out. “If they're done targeting things and they're warming up to hurt...people?”

  “It really does,” I said. “and it means that once again, we're left without any clue where they're going, or even what they could be getting up to when they get there.”