Sherlock was already punching in numbers on her cell. “I’ll alert the Secret Service.”
Mike was scrolling down her cell phone. “The media is already having a field day. Twitter has exploded with speculation.”
Nicholas said, “Martin, I’m on my way; get your team ready to reverse-engineer. Mike, can you get a SitRep on the outage for me?”
“On it.”
Savich said, “Nicholas, let’s get down to IT and stop this thing. Martin, get ahold of Juno, we need to work with their protocols.”
Nicholas said, “I want to bring in Adam Pearce, too. We have to move fast.” Savich nodded and Nicholas dialed as they walked.
Adam sounded exhausted and harried. “I know, I know, Nicholas, COE pulled a doomsday on you. I’m working on it.”
“Work faster. I’m in D.C. and I’m about to work with the IT team here at the Hoover. Can you trace where the signal is coming from?”
“I’m looking. It’s south of you. They’re popping online then getting off as quickly as the IP addresses register. The last signal came from near Richmond. I’ll call you back.”
Savich and Nicholas broke into a run, down the long hallway and into the mainframe server room. There were a dozen men and women scrambling around, making sure the backups were safe. A man with short black hair, aviator glasses, and a small mustache walked up to them. He said in a voice so calm, so soothing, Nicholas felt his heart rate slow, fought the urge to yawn: “You Drummond?”
At Nicholas’s nod, Martin said, “Come this way.”
Savich knew he wasn’t needed. He stood there and watched the room of people shift into a complex ballet, people switching stations, screens glowing, keyboards clattering, all under the oddly green-tinged lights of the emergency backup generators.
Mike came up, tugged on his sleeve. “Air traffic control is rerouting all planes in the area. The Capitol power plant is offline, so the Capitol police are enacting emergency measures as if there’s an imminent attack coming on their locale. Sherlock spoke to the Secret Service, and Vice President Sloane is being moved to a secure location. All the nuclear plants up and down the eastern seaboard are executing emergency measures. The Metro and the trains into and out of D.C. are all offline. We’re going to have massive gridlock, and fast. We need to control this, make sure we don’t have a panic on our hands. What else can we do?”
“Honestly?” Savich replied. “We see how good our team is.”
53
KING TO H2
The White House
The power went out without so much as a whisper. Callan was reading an up-to-the-minute brief on the Geneva talks. “They’re falling apart,” she said aloud. “Not a surprise now we think Iran and Hezbollah were trying to undermine the talks.”
Quinn rushed into her office, hair flying. “Secret Service are coming to move you to the bunker.”
“Because the power’s out? Isn’t that a bit of an overreaction?”
“The Richmond power grid’s been attacked, and there’s a rolling blackout making its way up the eastern seaboard. The FBI feels an attack on you could be imminent and this could be the start. We’ve got to go.”
Damari, Callan thought, her heart leaping into her throat. Ari, you were right. Thank you, thank you.
Her heart was kettledrumming in her chest, but she wasn’t about to freak Quinn out.
Callan was well trained in the emergency protocols; they’d been drummed into her from the moment she accepted the nomination of vice president and was suddenly surrounded by men bristling with weapons concerned solely for her safety. She’d also helped improve them when she’d been in the CIA. She grabbed her jacket from the chair back, got her heels on. Quinn had her secure laptop and her briefcase.