Dad frowned. “Meaning?”
“We will give you all the wattage you want or need—up to the limitation I mentioned—in exchange for part ownership of the project. No cash, just partnership points.”
Did I somehow wind up on Shark Tank? Rhys wondered.
A knock on the door interrupted. A young woman poked her head in. She wore an Indiana Jones hat and a safari jacket embroidered with SCEC.
“Sorry to interrupt. I’m Doctor Heuser with the Southern California Earthquake Center. Just doing a damage survey on yesterday’s tremblor. How’d we do here?”
Tadhak said, “No broken windows, just things falling off shelves. The only breakage was in the grocery store with glass bottles hitting the floor. I manage all these properties, so if something more serious had occurred, I’d know about it.”
She nodded. “Pretty typical for a three-point-six. Thanks. You’ve saved me some time. Another question: Did any of you notice anything strange before the shaking began?”
His father frowned. “Explain ‘strange.’”
“We’ve had numerous reports of a vague tingling of the skin prior to the shakes.”
Rhys hadn’t felt a thing. The three men looked at one another and shrugged, then denied any sensation.
She made a note, saying, “Okay, that fits. The mentions came more from down in the valley, less from the higher elevations.”
As she started to close the door, his father said, “Excuse me, but we get a lot of quakes here.”
“We know. You have faults all over the place.”
“But this is the first time someone from the Earthquake Center has come calling.”
“This quake was a multi-fault rupture.”
“‘Multi-fault,’” Dad said. “I’ve heard of those.”
Dr. Heuser said, “It’s when a rupture in one fault propagates over to another nearby fault. Unfortunately they’re becoming more common. And that’s bad because when multiple faults are involved, you multiply the intensity and the result can be a very damaging quake.”
“Wasn’t the 1812 San Jacinto earthquake multi-fault?” Dad said.
She smiled. “You know your seismologic history. Yes, and very destructive. We didn’t have any instruments to measure severity back then, but we guesstimate it at M-seven-point five. Another reason I’m out here is because our seismic sensor network picked up an odd signal in this area before the quake and we’re trying to track down the source.”
“Odd how?” Tadhak said.
She shrugged. “Odd in that we’ve never seen it before and can’t identify it.”
Dad said, “Fascinating. Can I contact you sometime if I have questions?”
She stepped inside, saying, “Well, we’re pretty busy right now, but when things calm down, sure. I’m with the seismology group up at Caltech.”
She handed a card to each of them, then waved and left.
Rhys examined his card. Rebecca Z. Heuser, Ph.D. It carried the same SCEC logo with an NSF + USGS Center below it.
He looked up. “‘NSF’?”
“National Science Foundation and United States Geological Survey,” Dad said.
“I had no idea you were so into earthquakes, Dad.”
“I have no choice but to be interested. We’re due for a big one around here and knowledge is power.” He tucked the card away as he turned back to Tadhak. “And speaking of power, where were we?”
“We were discussing how many points I get in your project in return for letting you tap into my wind farm voltage.”
“Ah, yes. How many do you think it’s worth?”
He didn’t hesitate. “Twenty-five.”
Dad gave a soft laugh. “I’d never be able to sell that to the Elders. But I can give you ten.”
“Make it fifteen. I can’t go any lower.”
His father nodded. “I can get them to agree to fifteen.”
Jason Tadhak rose and stuck out his hand. “Then we have a deal? Fifteen percent ownership in whatever technology arises from this?”
Rhys was shocked when his father shook Tadhak’s hand and said, “Deal.”
He knew it wasn’t his place but he felt he had to say something.
“Shouldn’t we think this over?”
His father shrugged. “What’s to think over? We need the voltage, Jason’s willing to part with some of his without the clan putting up cash. Enough said.”
“This will be easy to arrange,” Tadhak said. “The town’s main transformer is oversized and just happens to be on the south side, with a straight shot to the tower.”
“When can we get started?” Dad said.
Tadhak shrugged. “Start trenching today if you want. The land between the tower and the transformer is already yours, so no problem there. I’ll even throw in some extra heavy-duty cable we’ve had left over from powering up the town. As soon as the deal memo is signed and you lay a cable, we can hook you up to our transformer. After that, the ball, so to speak, will be in your court.”
Rhys couldn’t believe how accommodating Tadhak was being. He seemed to want to get the project up and running as much as Dad. Rhys couldn’t help phasing out as they discussed details of the deal, about having the Tadhak lawyers talk to the Pendry lawyers, blah-blah-blah.
He jumped as he felt a hand on his shoulder.
“Earth to Rhys,” Dad said. “Time to go.”
He shot from the seat. “Sorry. My mind drifted.”
He shook hands with Jason and followed his father out to the Land Rover.
“I was afraid you were going to nod off in there,” Dad said.
Rhys let his annoyance show. “Well, why not? I had nothing better to do. No part in the conversation or the negotiations. Why was I even there?”
“To see how things get done, to see how to handle a negotiation, that’s why.”
He turned to his father. “Seriously, Dad? You call that a negotiation? He asked for twenty-five freakin’ percent! And you gave him fifteen!”
“What would you have done?”
“I would have paid for the wattage and kept one hundred percent of the technology.”
“That’s because you don’t know how much we’ve poured into that tower. It’s been hellishly expensive. I’m talking millions. I walked in there ready to pay too, but I intended to bargain like hell for a low price. But when he asked for a percentage, I almost fell off the chair.”
“He seems to want in very, very badly.”
“That he does. I probably could have got him down to five.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because I wanted to seal the deal.”
“But fifteen percent?”
“I would have given him fifty.”
“What?”
“What’s fifty percent of nothing?”
Rhys stared at his father. “What does that even mean?”
Dad waved him off. “Forget I said it.”
“Oh, no. Dad, you can’t leave me hanging like that. ‘What’s fifty percent of nothing?’ You need to explain that.”
“Nothing to explain. Just running my mouth. Take us home.”
Rhys could see he wasn’t going to get anything more out of his father. Grinding his teeth in frustration, he drove them back up the hill to the Lodge.
3
What the fuck?
Karma couldn’t believe it: Some guy had got inside the tower fence. Not only that, he was just stepping off the elevator. He’d been down the shaft!
Shit-shit-shit! Pendry would have his ass. He’d been pissed enough that his own son had got into the tower. Now a stranger? And the very next day? Goodbye, job, hello, unemployment line.
He raced over and yanked on the gate but found it locked. How the fuck had he got in?
The guy spotted him and ducked around to the far side of the tower. Karma opened the padlock and ran after him. He found him halfway up the fence, climbing toward the jacket he’d draped over the concertina wire.
Okay, the how question was ans
wered, now to get to the why and what he’d done down in the shaft.
He ran up, grabbed the back of the guy’s belt, and yanked him off the fence. As he landed on his back he held up his hands and started yelling.
“Okay! Okay! I’m busted! I give up!”
He had curly sandy hair and a scraggly beard. Karma kicked him in the side.
“Damn right, you’re busted, fucker! What? I didn’t put up enough no-trespassing signs up for ya?”
The guy reached into his breast pocket and pulled out an ID folder. “I’m a reporter, checking on the earthquake and the light show around here yesterday.”
Karma grabbed it and checked. Yeah, it had his photo. Allen J. Puckett, reporter for …
“The Light? You work for the fucking Light?” He pointed toward the tower. “You think you’re gonna find a flying saucer or something down below?”
“Hey, the paper’s not like it used to be. We do legit news now.”
Bullshit. Karma saw issues when he waited in checkout lines in Brawley and El Centro. Martian babies and secret messages from inside the earth and shit like that.
Puckett added, “I came looking to see if there might be a connection between the earthquake and the light show last night.”
“Well, you didn’t find none, so you can haul your nosy ass—”
“Au contraire,” he said with a grin. “I found something. Not sure what it is but there’s definitely something going on down at the bottom of that shaft.”
Oh, shit. This kept getting worse and worse. Pendry’d throw a shit fit if he found a fucking reporter had gotten near his precious tower, but then if that reporter started writing crazy stories about it …
This guy was bad news … made Karma’s beard itch.
“Like what?” he said.
“You’re going to tell me you don’t know?”
“I’m just a guard dog. Supposed to keep mutts like you out.”
“You’ve never been down there?”
“Why would I wanna go down there?”
“Hey, can I get up and show you?”
“Yeah, sure,” Karma said, playing along. “Why not?”
Puckett got to his feet and led the way to the tower where they ducked through the struts and crossbeams to the low wall around the shaft.
“There’s a big pipe going into the ground down there and all sorts of weird electronic equipment at the bottom.” He pulled out his phone and held it up. “I got pictures and everything, but I need a human angle. You’ve got to know something about this thing. Fill me in and I’ll put you in my write-up. You’ll be famous. The ladies will be all over you.”
Yeah, he thought, they’re all crazy about out-of-work guys.
“Weird shit down there, you say?”
“The weirdest.”
“Maybe you better take another look,” Karma said and gave him a hard shove.
Puckett screamed and his arms and legs were going every which way as he disappeared into the darkness. He screamed all the way down. And then all noise stopped.
Okay, reporter problem solved, replaced by a dead-body problem. But Karma had lots of desert available to him out there.
He went and got his pickup and backed it up to the tower fence gate. Then he turned on the shaft lights and took the elevator down to the bottom where he found Puckett looking very broken and very dead. The guy hadn’t been kidding about all the weird electronic shit down here. Karma had never seen anything like it.
He accompanied the body back up to the surface where he struggled it onto his shoulder and hauled it to his pickup.
As he tossed it onto the cargo bed, he heard a voice say, “Well, well, what have we here?”
Karma’s heart damn near stopped when he looked around and saw Elis Pendry watching him.
“Mister Pendry,” he said. “We got a dead trespasser.”
Pendry didn’t look shocked, just troubled.
“How did this come to be, Kendrick?”
“He climbed over the fence and I chased him and he fell down the shaft. He was talking about the sparks from the tower causing the earthquake.”
Pendry said, “You do realize, don’t you, that the tower put on its show well after the earthquake.”
“Right, so it couldn’t’ve caused the quake.”
“Exactly. And what are your plans for the deceased?”
“Well, we can call the cops, if you want.”
“This is something I most definitely do not want. I cannot have the constabulary crawling all over my tower and attracting the press who will inevitably concoct wild and irresponsible theories about it.”
“Okay, then, just between you and me, I know place out in the desert near—”
Pendry’s hand shot up. “I think you’ll agree it’s better for both of us if I don’t know the particulars.”
“Yeah, I guess so. Let’s just say I can bury him where no one will ever find him.”
“Well, Kendrick, by doing so you will go a long way toward redeeming yourself for letting him get over the fence in the first place.”
Well, at least it sounded like he still had a job.
“I’ll get right on it.”
“He must have a car somewhere that will need disposal, as well as a phone.”
“Leave it all to me.”
Pendry smiled. “That’s what I like to hear, Kendrick. Make it happen.”
Karma slammed the tailgate closed. Wouldn’t be the first time he’d buried someone in the desert.
4
A knocking noise …
She’d just been dozing off—Friday night in Nespodee Springs was so exciting.
But really, who knew that doing next to nothing for ten hours in a virtually empty shop could be so exhausting? She’d tuned in the late news on a local station. Besides the latest updates on the continuing spread of the horrors throughout Southern California, the big story in this corner of the county was still last night’s flashes from the tower. Someone driving along a county road near Ocotillo had recorded a video on her phone and sent it in. Daley’s eyelids had started to droop as the newswoman droned through a press release from the Pendrys explaining the Tesla tower and how the display was harmless.
More knocks.
She straightened from the sofa and looked around, trying to locate the sound.
(“‘Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door,’”) said Pard from where he sat in the easy chair.
The shop below had front and back doors, but the apartment had only one—through the kitchen from the outside stairs.
She checked her phone. “Almost midnight.”
The eat-in kitchen—would you believe a linoleum floor?—took up the rear of the apartment with the door to the right and a window over the sink. She leaned over the sink to see who was out there. Faint moonlight lit a long flight of stairs running up to a small landing outside the rear door. She squinted but could make out only a dark shape.
She called out, “Who is it?”
No reply. Her gut twisted. He must have heard her. This wasn’t good.
She flipped on the light over the landing but nothing happened.
Not good at all.
Then she noticed a slip of paper slide under the door. It read:
You don’t know me
He’s slipping me notes?
(“Well, he’s honest, at least.”)
Totally weird.
“If I don’t know you,” she said, “I’m not going to let you in.”
Another note slipped through.
Don’t want to come in
“Then why are you here?”
Just want to say hello
She found that somehow touching, but remained on high alert.
“Why not just tell me your name?”
Can’t speak
“You’re mute?”
Yes. And very ugly
Another note quickly followed.
So please don’t open the door
She had no intention o
f opening the door, so if he was trying to disarm her, he was succeeding.
(“This is very puzzling.”)
Tell me about it. What’s he up to?
(“Well, the door’s locked, so you’re safe. You can tell him to go away or play this out.”)
As if this town isn’t weird enough already. All right, I’m going to play it out. I mean, why not? And how ugly can he be?
And besides, she was bored.
She knelt next to the door and said, “You know … what’s ugly to some people isn’t ugly to others.”
Despite my ugliness I am vain
Please respect that
God, this was weird.
“Okay. The door stays closed.”
She looked up to find a T-shirted Jason Statham standing by the door with a grim expression and his trademark stubble.
What are you doing?
(“Just want you to feel safe while you’re interacting with this nut job,”) he said in a decent imitation of Statham’s Brit accent, which Daley loved.
He might be a nut job, but I don’t think he’s dangerous. I appreciate the thought, but you can return to your generic self.
(“I kind of like this look.”)
Suit yourself.
She turned to the door: “Why are you here?”
To get acquainted
“Through a door? With notes?”
I have no choice
“Oh, right. I’m sorry about that.”
Did you enjoy the show last night?
“You mean the tower?” Of course he meant the tower. “Very impressive to watch. Too bad it didn’t work. Loved the sparks, though.”
It’s all a show
Like fireworks on the 4th
“Were you there?”
where I could see the show
yet not be seen
“You keep calling it a ‘show.’ Is there a reason for that?”
I tell the truth
it’s a distraction
“Distraction from what?”
I hear you talking at night
The abrupt change in subject was jarring, but the words themselves gave her a definite chill.
“You’ve been eavesdropping on me?”
Double Threat Page 21
