Was I dreaming this?
A policeman bounded in, weapon ready, followed by two men wearing FBI vests. Wade handed the cop Nance’s gun. “Take her in.”
Take her in?
Mom staggered to my side and bent over her beloved Emily, sobbing.
“I—o—kay,” Emily sputtered. Her teeth were clenched.
The policeman cuffed Nance and led her away.
The world flowed and swayed. My brain could barely process. I could only clutch my daughter’s hand, praying, pleading with Jesus. Let her be okay let her be okay let her be okay . . .
Wade soothed her and me, murmuring he was sorry, but I couldn’t understand and had no energy to try. He could arrest me later, I didn’t care. Just let me be with Emily now, let me hold my crying mother, and try to make sense of it all.
“Mo—” Emily tried to talk. “K-k-.”
One of the FBI men—was he for real?—picked up the collar. Examined it. His head jerked up. “This it?”
I gave a vague nod.
“The key?”
“Yes!” As if I cared anymore. I just hung on to Emily.
Both FBI men ran out. Sergeant Wade stayed.
What was happening here?
Sirens sounded in the distance. Police came, and more police. An ambulance. Paramedics loaded Emily onto a gurney, then into the vehicle. I stayed by her side, climbing in after her. Mom wanted to come too. They tried to pull her away, but she writhed and fought and wailed, her cries piercing and high. They relented.
Somewhere along the way to the ambulance I’d seen Ashley Eddington on the sidewalk, clutching her little girl. Words flowed around her, about climbing out of a bedroom window . . . telling Sergeant Wade . . .
The ambulance door closed. It was crowded. The paramedic was treating Emily for shock. She was shaking, clammy. “Her femoral artery wasn’t hit.” His words burned into me. “She’ll be okay.”
“Where are we going?” Had I said that? I couldn’t feel my mouth move. Couldn’t feel my body.
“Sequoia Hospital.”
Back to where we started.
At the hospital they unloaded Emily and whisked her through the emergency room doors. I followed with Mom, as fast as she could go.
Just inside the door, Mom collapsed.
I caught her before she hit the floor. I yelled for help. Nurses bustled to her side, lifted her onto a gurney and rolled her toward an exam room. Before I knew it, I was alone.
The walls of my mind closed in. I wobbled across the floor like a lost soul. Which one did I go to first, mother or daughter?
Sergeant Wade materialized. “You okay?”
I listed to one side. His strong arms caught me.
“Come, sit down.” He guided me to a chair. I sat heavily. “I’m so sorry this all happened to you. If I’d understood earlier . . .”
“I’m not under arrest?” My mouth moved, but the sound was so far away. Spots crowded my vision.
Wade held my arms. “No, don’t worry—”
I fought him. “Have to . . . go. See Emily. Mom.”
He hung on to me. “Emily will be headed for surgery. They have to take the bullet out.”
“I have to see—”
“You can’t.”
“But—”
“Mrs. Shire. No.”
This couldn’t . . . “I have to see Mom . . .”
“She’ll be fine. You can see her in a little while. She just needs rest. And hydration.”
Me too. “She needs me.”
“Mrs. Shire, you need you.”
Weakness overtook me. I couldn’t get up.
A nurse appeared. “She all right?”
“Bring her some water.”
Footsteps hurried away. Came back. My fingers closed around a bottle. I drank.
My mother would need her medication tonight. It was in her suitcase. In Aunt Margie’s car. Which was . . . ?
A different memory pulsed. Stuffing spread across the floor.
“It wasn’t in Rawly. In his collar.”
“I saw that.”
“Those men—they took it?”
“Yes.”
“Can they stop it in time?”
I didn’t even know what time it was. Had no energy to look.
“You can bet they’re trying.”
“Why aren’t you with them?”
“They don’t need me now. You do.”
Air bubbles skidded around my lungs. My thoughts ebbed and flowed, chaotic tide churning sand. “Nance Bolliver is one of them. Three men in the house. Dead.”
“Where?”
“San Mateo.”
“Who are they?”
“Tex. Mack. Stone.”
“I mean their organization.”
Full realization finally hit me. Wade had broken into Ashley Eddington’s house. Arrested Nance. Saved us.
I reared back and looked him in the eye. “You’re not one of them?”
“No.”
My brain couldn’t comprehend it. “Yes, you are.”
“Why did you think that? Why did you run instead of calling me when that man broke into your house?”
“You told them I kept a copy of that video. They came to kill me.”
A slow light dawned on his face. He shook his head. “No. Nance must have told them.”
Oh. Oh. All the thoughts I’d had, the preconceived notions, rushed me. What had I done? I’d put my family in danger. “Is Harcroft with them?”
“No.”
“But he never trusted me.”
“Harcroft doesn’t trust anybody.”
“Only Nance, then?”
Wade pulled in a breath. “That we know of.”
We fell silent. I couldn’t form words. My insides jumbled and tore. I drank more water, exhaustion rolling over me. Tears fell from my eyes. I leaned over, and they plopped on my pants. “This is my fault. I failed.”
That’s when the lights went out.
Chapter 55
In the emergency waiting room the dark seemed endless. People called out to one another. Things bumped and rattled. I could hear my own breathing.
I couldn’t believe it had happened. It had really happened.
Was this what our world would be like from now on?
What about Emily’s surgery? What about Mom?
“Will you be all right?” Wade’s voice, grim. “Generators should come on soon here. I need to go.”
“Sure.”
The lights flickered on. Thank You, God. I rose, demanding information about Emily. She’d gone to surgery, they said.
“But how do they do surgery when the lights are out?”
“The docs just wait for the generators. Now that power’s back on, everything should be proceeding fine.”
Not good enough. I wanted to tear down walls until I found my daughter.
“Mrs. Shire, would you like to see your mother?”
Smart nurse knew how to divert me. “Yes.”
She pointed the way. I wound through the emergency area and slipped into Mom’s room. She was lying in bed, an IV in her arm. Tugging on a nurse’s sleeve. “I have to go. We have to get to Raleigh . . .”
Mom saw me—and her face lit up. “Hannah. Can we go to Raleigh now?”
A sob burst from me. Had she forgotten Emily had been shot?
Leaning over the bed, I smoothed white hair off Mom’s forehead. “We don’t need to go anymore.”
“We don’t?”
“No. We just need to get you well and home.”
“What about the Bad People?”
“I don’t think they’ll be after us anymore.” They’d gotten what they wanted. I thought of the millions of homes without power. The businesses and stores. Government buildings
. How could anyone do this to their own country?
How long would the hospital generators stay on?
Some time later, Emily’s surgery was over. “She’ll fully recover,” the doctor told me. “We got the bullet out. She’ll have a scar, but she’ll be fine. Once she’s awake and in her room, you can see her. We’ll keep her overnight.”
The bullet, he said, had been given to police. It was evidence.
I nodded. “Tell me. How long will the generators last?”
The doctor didn’t know.
Mom was admitted also—a different room. The generators held up that night, and I spent the time moving from one room to another, checking on both my mother and my daughter. At about 2 a.m., I collapsed in a chair in Emily’s room.
When I awoke, a beautiful sun was shining. But the heaviness would not leave my heart.
The days that followed were full of police interviews. Sergeant Wade took my information and filled me in on what he’d learned. Nance Bolliver had broken and confessed her part in an anarchist organization called FreeNow. Stone—the man I killed—had been its leader.
At that news, a dark justice pulsed through my limbs.
It had been a surprise to learn through Nance that Nathan Eddington was a critical member of FreeNow, creating the code that would infect the electrical grid computers. Some time back he’d apparently bought a stuffed dog for his daughter and written the key to stop the attack on the dog’s collar. Her mother later replaced that hard collar with a soft handmade kerchief. But on the day before Phase 1, Eddington had turned against FreeNow and rushed the video to Morton Leringer. Eddington knew he’d soon be dead for his betrayal. But maybe Leringer could stop the impending attack. . .
“Be careful. Don’t tell.”
Yet another victim of homicide was found in a Redwood City apartment—Todd Nooley, also a member of FreeNow. Nooley had stabbed Eddington and Leringer while trying to retrieve the video. When Nooley failed in his task, Nance said, Tex had been ordered to kill him.
Stone had been as merciless with his own men as with the rest of the country.
The FBI task force and Homeland Security worked together in a frenzy to stop the next phases of FreeNow’s plan. With mere hours to go before Phase 2, they were able to send the “abort” code into all infected computers.
Still, the western grid and the states around Washington D.C. remained in blackness.
Mom and I were allowed to go back into our home. Emily stayed with us. It was the beginning of endless days. With no heat in the house, we dressed in layers, Emily wearing my clothes. She was on meds for her pain. Amazing, how fast she recovered. I think pure rage knit her cells back together.
I chose not to go to work the first few days. I was too busy taking care of Mom and Emily. And after that, Dr. Nicholson closed his office until electricity was restored.
Our world narrowed. We fell into survival mode.
One week passed.
I drove to store after store, seeking extra candles and flashlights, but all were sold out. Many of the stores weren’t even open. On my drive, I passed storefronts with broken windows, bent doors. People were running the streets at night, wild in the shroud of darkness, behaving as they never would in the light of day. Shots rang out at night, people killing, looting. Police tried to keep up with the arrests. It was hard for them to know which criminals were part of FreeNow and which were mere opportunists.
Was this what FreeNow had wanted?
Before long my car’s gas tank was near Empty. We had no way of filling it. Stations couldn’t pump gas without electricity.
In our town, strict curfews were set in place. The National Guard was called in. They and police worked overtime to crack down on the rising tide of violence.
A second week staggered by.
Mom, Emily, and I stayed in the house, not even answering the door unless it was for law enforcement. Reporters came, begging to talk to us. We ignored them.
I wondered about Aunt Margie. Was she safe? Staying with neighbors?
During that third week, Emily flicked on every light switch in the house, as well as the TV. Whenever the power did come back on, she wanted to know it.
Mom wandered a lot, confused and fearful. She couldn’t watch TV or dance to Lady Gaga. And no amount of explanation as to why would satisfy her. She’d wake up at night, crying. Emily made a makeshift bed of blankets and pillows on Mom’s floor. She wanted to sleep near her Grand’s side.
The fourth week ground by.
We were rationing our food. Grocery shopping became almost impossible, even if I walked to a store. Businesses couldn’t get their supplies. And credit cards were useless. We ran out of cash. Stores didn’t want to take checks. No way to turn them into cash when computers were down.
In most urgent situations, the Red Cross would be there within days. But the power outage was so widespread, they’d have to move large trucks of supplies through numerous states just to get to California—on one tank of gas. And there were so many other people to help before they ever got to us.
Would they show up at all?
I prayed a lot, trying to deal with the questions. Why this? Why us? One minute I would thank God I’d been able to defend my daughter and mother. The next I’d be begging forgiveness for killing not one, but two people. Even though they were bad men, maybe I could have done something.
Was the world ending? Was this what the book of Revelation talked about? If so, was I ready?
Lord, You know I’m not. Please make me ready.
In the afternoons the three of us took to reading the Bible out loud. Something to comfort us. To remind us of a God who is permanent in this ever-changing, frightening world. One day in a moment of clarity Mom spoke up. “There’s a book we should read.” She gazed at her lap, struggling to remember. “I think it’s Matthew. No, Malachi. No—Micah.”
Micah?
Mom was sure.
At first it seemed a depressing choice, filled with prophecies of death and destruction. Until we came to chapter seven, verses seven and eight.
But I will look to the Lord;
I will wait for the God of my salvation.
My God will hear me.
Do not rejoice over me, my enemy!
Though I have fallen, I will stand up;
though I sit in darkness,
the Lord will be my light.
At the last phrase, Mom gave a sage nod. Emily and I looked up, startled, and locked eyes. Both of us started to cry.
We clung to those two verses in the coming days. Memorized them. In the fifth and sixth weeks Emily and I repeated them to each other. “Though I sit in darkness, the Lord will be my light.”
And I began to sense, as I never had before, God’s arms around me. Yes, what we’d been through—and what we were going through now—was horrible. Awful. But the three of us were alive, by His mercy.
No matter what happened, our God was greater than tragedy.
The Red Cross finally came, bringing their own gas. I walked downtown to fight the lines for food and came home triumphant, lugging two bags of groceries. It felt like Christmas.
The days dragged on. All three of us were losing weight. My mother couldn’t afford to lose any, frail as she was.
And then, finally . . .
After forty-seven interminable days, around eight o’clock at night, the lights and TV blared on. The lights were so bright, the sound so loud, they set Mom to screaming. Emily and I froze, not quite knowing what to do. How to live.
Then we cheered.
I hurried to comfort my mother. “It’s okay, Mom, it’s okay. You can listen to your music again.”
She stopped, mid-screech. “I can?”
When she calmed, we held hands and stood in a circle, thanking God for bringing us through.
Mom clasped her
hands and put them near her chin. “Can I dance now?”
I smiled. “All day and all night, if you want.” Emily took her into the bedroom to put on a Lady Gaga CD. It was the sweetest sound we’d ever heard.
The next day, with TV news and radio and all our phones working again, we began to hear what the rest of the country had been hearing. The extent of widespread violence in all the states plunged into darkness. The cost in untold billions to our country with the economy hit. The unfolding account of FreeNow anarchists and their plot of insanity. The amazing story of three women in one family who’d saved the bulk of the nation—
Wait.
Were they talking about us?
Epilogue
Wednesday, December 25, 2013
“Here comes your turkey, Mom.”
She’d been asking about it for the last two hours. Holding the large platter, I swept from the kitchen to our dining area and set it on the table with a flourish.
Mom clapped her palms together. “Oh, it looks lovely. Doesn’t it, Margie!” Mom’s cheeks were rosy, and she wore a pretty outfit of purple pants and shirt to match her hat. Which she’d insisted on wearing to the table.
My aunt grinned. “Sure does.”
“I do so like turkey. And potatoes.”
Emily patted her grandmother’s arm. “We have potatoes for you, Grand.”
Did we ever. Aunt Margie had brought sweet potatoes as well as mashed russets. Plus green beans and a dessert. Added to all Emily and I had made, it was a real feast. I wouldn’t have to cook again for a week.
Emily caught my eye, and we exchanged a look—one that spoke of remembered rationing, and dark, cold nights.
I shivered.
We settled at the table and held hands to pray. I thanked God for the food, and the electricity, and the heat in our house. For our health, and Emily’s healed leg. For our very lives.
We took none of those things for granted anymore.
Emily helped Mom fill her plate. As my mother picked up her fork, her face took on that blank look that came more often these days. Her fork poised midair.
“What is it, Mom?”
“Why are we eating all this food?”
“It’s Christmas. Remember? See all the red and green?”
Dark Justice Page 24
