Hulagu's Web The Presidential Pursuit of Katherine Laforge

by David Hearne

  “How did you stop this attack?” questioned Katherine.

  “We were very lucky. It is very difficult to spot a minor drop in pressure that could be the start of a backflow attack. But Khalid was such a lousy plumber that he let water drip down into the apartment below. The tenant of course complained to the manager. When they investigated the drip, Khalid was not at home, but his device was set up with the ricin ready to go with another full container of it sitting next to the feed pipe. Police were notified and we stepped in. Never did get to interrogate him however, because when we attempted to arrest him, he darted out into traffic and was hit and killed by a school bus.”

  “So stopping that attack was just pure luck?” Payne asked.

  “I am afraid so.” Agent Nelson replied. “When someone is attempting to contaminate small water lines, it is very hard to detect. Things have changed a bit with some utility companies in the frequency of their pressure checks, but such a small drop-off would probably still go unnoticed.”

  “I never read anything about this attack. When did it happen?” Katherine asked.

  “Well that is one of those situations where we decided to keep it quiet. A little article about how Khalid died was in the paper, but the rest we never released to the media. The fact is that many attacks by terrorist are kept from the media because that is one way to reduce the effects of an attack or an attempted attack. They want to create terror, fear and confusion among us, so not reporting an incident diffuses it to a large degree. I am sure you have read about the forest fires that have ravaged Colorado, California, and Texas. Well, many of them have been set by various terrorist cells to prove how defenseless we are in stopping them. And they are right, we are stretched thin. The arsons are not reported unless we catch the perpetrator, even if we do receive claims by terrorist cells that they did it. “

  Agent Plouffe added, “Senator, we have reason to believe that there are cells that are planning to plant explosives in hospitals, movie theaters, and at high school sporting events. But we have very little we can do to stop such attacks. We don’t know if the information we receive is simply misinformation to keep us busy chasing shadows or something that is a real threat. We think that it is about half and half and that much of these operations will be carried out by some groups when they are ordered to proceed.”

  “Do we know who these terrorists are, or where they operate?” Katherine asked.

  “We think we know who some are, but unfortunately they often live in communities that are very hostile to government agencies and see our investigations as simply harassment of Middle Easterners. Some of these operatives have lived in a community for years and are not viewed by their neighbors as threats or anyone who would ever have a darker side. It is a very difficult job trying to weed out terrorist from law abiding Middle Eastern immigrants.” Plouffe responded.

  They had arrived at Katherine’s abandoned car.

  “Well here we are. I hope we have given you a bit more of an idea of what you are getting yourself involved in as President. We would be glad to keep you up to date on new activities that we are monitoring if we are given the authorization. By the way, Senator, I come from Bethlehem, New Hampshire, right up the road from your home town.” Nelson stated.

  “I thought I detected a bit of New England in you. Well please feel free to contact me with anything you have about these terrorist situations.”

  “We will Senator, and be careful out there. We don’t want to read about you in our files as some terrorist target. Enjoyed talking to you.”

  Katherine and Payne hurried over to their vehicle and felt the cool night air blowing in on them from the bay. The day had been another long day that had gone much different than planned. Frank wanted to call his wife the minute he got in the car and apologize for not answering his cell the last few hours. He wanted to tell her he was okay. It would be a little past her bedtime, but he knew she would be glad to hear from him and perhaps a little pissed off. He dialed Diane’s number and waited for her to pick up. It rang multiple times and then the answering machine came on. He started to close his phone, just as he heard her excited voice. “Frank, don’t hang up. I’m here.”

  “Hi Diane.”

  “Where have you been all day? I have been calling you for hours.”

  “I’m sorry sweetie, but we had a major security issue, and I was not able to contact you until now. Is everything okay with you?

  “Well, if you are okay then yes everything is wonderful. I got something very special to tell you.”

  “Okay! Tell me.”

  “We are going to have a baby, Frank”

  “Diane, did I hear you right? Did you say we are going to have a baby?”

  “Yes, I found out late today and have been trying to call you to let you know, but of course you can’t answer your damn phone. Are you happy?”

  “Christ yes, I’m happy. I am going to have to talk to the Senator to give me a couple days off so we can celebrate.”

  Frank held the phone to his chest and said to Katherine, “I’m going to be a dad in a few months.”

  “That should be just about inauguration time. We will hopefully have a lot to celebrate.” Katherine quipped.

  As Frank chatted with his wife, Katherine reminisced about when she found herself pregnant at the age of 43. It had scared her, but now she was grateful that it did happen. She probably was a better mom at 44, then she would have been in her twenties or thirties even. Having a baby is just so much more sacred as you mature. Her mind jumped to the trip they would be taking to Roscoe, Texas the next day. It tired her even thinking about the drive, but maybe in the morning after a couple hours of sleep it would seem better.

  When Frank hung up he was still elated. Being a father was something he really looked forward to.

  The trip to Roscoe, Texas started at 7 am at Houston’s Hobby Airport with a flight to Abilene, Texas Regional Airport. On this trip they decided to have Jannie Venter a former deputy sheriff, turned campaign worker, accompanied them to do the driving and to watch over their rented car. Venter’s driving would also provide Katherine and Frank a bit more time to get some rest after the exhausting events at the Galveston ferry. They had not yet incorporated their new hired security people into their campaign trips, so he was also going to act in that capacity.

  Roscoe was a small farm town with a population of about 1,300 west of Sweetwater near Interstate 20. Sweetwater was located in what West Texans affectionately call the “Big Country.” It had already made a name for itself as the hub of wind energy development and now a few miles away Roscoe was having its reincarnation as a town that was the heart of one of the biggest wind farms in the nation, if not the world. Katherine was proud that her state had become a leader in wind energy in such a short period of time. Texas had led the country in the oil business, and now it was leading in the wind power arena.

  Entering Roscoe was like stepping into a photo of the past and having details from days gone by transformed into a shimmering scene of a new beginning. The glistening white towers stretching 400 feet into the constantly moving air virtually erased the inscrutable blurs of deserted buildings that grayed the landscape. Just a short distance into town Sparky’s Café beckoned with its reborn veneer and cluster of vehicles sparkling in the late morning sun. It was one of the few businesses still opened in Roscoe after Interstate 20 was built, and the town lost its precious traffic and slowly wilted. The majority of the buildings on Broadway were boarded up with plywood. As they pulled up to the parking area in front of Sparky’s, they spotted Mr. Etheredge sitting in his open-top jeep. He had told them, “Just look for a man with one arm sitting in a canary yellow vehicle and that will be me.”

  Standing next to the yellow jeep was another gentleman.

  Venter drove the car behind the jeep and the Senator and Frank Payne exited. Mr. Etheredge jumped out of his jeep and strode over toward Katherine. In a soft Texas accent he said? “Senator Laforge? I am Cliff Etheredge and this is my
son David. Would you like to sit down and grab a cup of coffee while we give you some background on our wind farm?”

  Katherine smiled and shook her head yes. She introduced her campaign manager as they walked into the café.

  A hostess met them as they entered and asked, “Y’all want a booth or

  a table?”

  Mr. Etheredge replied, “Let’s have a booth.”

  “Right over thar, Cliff, go ahead on”, She directed.

  They sat down in a red vinyl booth and Katherine took in the west Texas ambiance of the café.

  “Here is the menu. If you are hungry, the pancakes are great here. That is, if you like having a late breakfast.” Cliff offered.

  “Thanks, Mr. Etheredge, that does sound good. We took a short flight to Abilene and drove the rest of the way, so we never really stopped to eat. Breakfast does sound great.”

  “Senator, please call me Cliff, you make me feel a heck of a lot older than I am when you call me Mr. Etheredge.”

  “Okay Cliff and the same for you. Call me Katherine please.”

  Everyone had read the menu and a smiling waitress offered, “Y’all want some hot coffee? I’m fixin some fresh?”

  The waitress looked at Katherine and said, “Senator, I just want to tell yew that since Cliff got things goin’ richeer in Roscoe, jist about everyone now is walkin’ in tall cotton. We all luv him.”

  Katherine could sense the reverence that the people held for Cliff Etheredge. A few people had looked his way and slightly nodded their head, but respected him enough to not interrupt his meeting.

  “Cliff, how did this wind farm business get started here in Roscoe?” Frank asked.

  “Well, I was just riding around near another wind farm not to far from Roscoe and started wondering if that could be our solution to our problems. So I started investigating and asking questions. From everything I read and learned, it just seemed Roscoe would be a prime spot for a wind farm. We have a perpetual wind of about 17 or 18 miles per hour blowing across our farm land, and I thought instead of just letting it dry up our land, we could put the wind to work.”

  Dave Etheredge interjected, “Dad introduced the idea to local land owners and organized them into a group with a common goal called ‘Wind Works.’ Then he went hunting for investors and was lucky to find a company call Airtricity, out of Dublin Ireland. They are spending more than a billion dollars installing the wind turbines. We plan to eventually have about 640 windmills.”

  “And that will produce enough electricity for over a quarter of a million households and pay some very decent royalties to a few hundred of my neighbors here in Roscoe.” Cliff added looking straight at Katherine.

  A smiling waitress appeared at the table and asked, “Y’all want anuther cup o’ coffee?”

  Once cups were refilled, Katherine said, “Cliff, beside the obvious benefit of the additional electrical resources, how else has it benefited the area?

  “Well we have a lot of farmers and townsfolk that now have an additional income that they did not have and that makes for a pretty happy community compared to before when the town was struggling to just stay alive. We are attracting new people to our area now. My own son decided to come back to his hometown to live, once this business got going.” Cliff said with a smile as he glanced at David.

  “The participating landowners are getting royalties of five thousand to fifteen thousand dollars per year for their leases to the wind farm. We have friends that are…

  Katherine all of a sudden felt a chill and the hair on the nape of her neck tingled. Something was happening, but she was not sure what it was. Cliff’s words went unheard as she tried to control her loudly beating heart. Then the phone rang. It sounded abnormally loud, erasing Cliff’s voice completely. She clumsily reached for it and instinctively knew the call was something special.

  “She said hello into the receiver as the faces of those at the table came back into view. She smiled apologetically at them and said, “I need to take this.” And stood up to leave the table. Katherine walked out of the café and stood in the breezy air. “Who is this?” she said into her phone. For a couple seconds, there was no reply and then a woman’s voice replied, a voice she had heard before “Hello Katherine, this is Zoe.”

  “Zoe?” Katherine repeated confused.

  “Yes, your twin. I am not dead. We are still connected. Maybe I am connected more to you then you are to me, but we are still one, just in two different bodies.”

  Katherine held the phone to her mouth, but she was speechless. Was this a cruel joke? She knew it wasn’t, not with the hair on the back of her neck standing straight up even before the call came. She had sensed the call, or maybe she had felt some sort of connection between the two of them even before Zoe had made the call.

  “Why are you calling yourself Zoe?” Katherine asked and then felt stupid for asking such a foolish question.

  “I needed a name and that was one, we used to like, remember? Are you upset that I still exist?”

  Katherine’s stomach knotted as the full recognition of what was happening registered in her mind.

  “Oh God no. I really had hoped you would survive. But it is so unbelievable. It was you that called Lyndsey a while back wasn’t it?”

  “I called her because”, Zoe’s voice broke and Katherine could hear the anguish in it. Because I am as much her mother as you are Katherine, and you know that. My life was your life, and it is hard to erase it from my mind.”

  “How did you get here?” Katherine whispered into the phone.

  “That is not important now. I am calling you because you are in danger. You are being followed.”

  “What?” Katherine scanned the parking lot, but the only person she saw was Venter sitting in their vehicle. He nodded at her as her eyes for a second locked onto his.

  “There are two men who were at the airport when you arrived who have continually been following you since you rented the car. They were watching you through binoculars while they sat in their car. One of them has been driving back and forth pass the café while you were in there. I am not sure where the other one is.”

  “You are here also watching me?”

  “Katherine we cannot spend time talking about that now. Go back inside the café and be careful.”

  Zoe abruptly hung up and Katherine stood for moment milling over the situation. She looked up and down Broadway, but really didn’t see anything suspicious. She realized that she had to return to her meeting inside the café, but first, she went over to Venter and told him that a reliable informant had just told her they were being watched.

  “Just someone trying to get dirt on you, Senator.” Venter offered.

  “You are probably right”, Katherine responded as she walked to the café’s entrance.

  When she approached their table, she could hear Cliff giving some specs on the wind turbines.

  “Each one of the turbines reach up about 400 feet topped with a carbon-fiber propeller that spans another one hundred and fifty feet. The sound the propeller makes is a whoosh sound similar to the sound a wave makes. Senator everything okay?”

  Katherine smiled and said, “Yes everything is fine just some important issues I had to take care of. I see you all are finished eating. Should we visit the wind farm now?”

  “Katherine, you didn’t finish,” Cliff protested.

  “That’s fine. It’s cold now and I am really not that hungry. Let me take care of this bill and then let’s visit the site.”

  “Senator let me take care of the bill. This is my treat. We invited you here.”

  “Mr. Etheredge you better just let her take care of it. She is the government and when the government offers you something for free without red tape, you better take it. You are not going to win, I know her.” Frank Payne joked.

  “Well, okay, then I will get the next meal.” Cliff said.

  Katherine leaned over to Cliff and said, “Does this buy me a ride in your yellow jeep?”

 
“Darn right it does. It would be my pleasure to have you ride with me. The jeep might not be the most comfortable vehicle in the world, but it makes it easier to see around the town as we take the tour.

  As Katherine climbed into the jeep she saw the sign hanging off the glove box that read ‘Get In - Sit down - Shut up - Hold on’. Cliff smiled at her and said, “Senators are exempt from those rules. Okay?”

  Katherine smiled and looked back to see if any other cars beside her rented one were following them. She saw nothing that looked suspicious and Frank and Cliff’s son David riding with Venter did make her feel a bit more secure. Their presence, however, did not lessen the anxiety welling up inside her.

  “So what are you going to show me first?” Katherine asked.

  “Well as you can see this town looks like it was close to being a ghost town before this wind power project got started. Now we have some new places opening up and people actually coming here to live and work. That is very satisfying to me to know that we are giving life back to Roscoe. You can see poking up all over the horizon the wind turbines. Those white giants have become Roscoe’s salvation. Now we have nearly 400 property owners benefiting financially from the wind turbines, and they are still left with the land to farm cotton. Not a bad deal!”

  The rumble of a garbage truck thrummed through the jeep as it passed them making its morning rounds. Behind it another vehicle followed with two men gawking at the jeep.

  “Are those friends of yours Cliff?” Katherine asked motioning to the passing car.

  “Nope, could be workers, tourist or just friends of friends. Like I said we are growing, and we have people moving in now instead of out.” Cliff smiled with a bit of pride in his voice.

  Katherine’s concern about those two men was interrupted by Cliff.

  “Just three years ago, no one could’ve imagined this. What has happened is absolutely unbelievable. I think all of us who use to curse the wind, now loves it.”