Chapter 23

Hoover Dam and environs

January 17 (January 16 in Shanghai)

Well, Major Robert Waldspeil thought for a moment, after hanging up his phone, that's damn strange.

He had just finished talking with General Robertson and the Governor of Nevada – his boss and his boss's boss. The 'normal' summer duty for his men was two weeks, the same as it always was now that they're not going to the sandbox in the Middle East. They'd been out on this construction project to help build two new power substations for three weeks already – superfluous stations, if his engineers could be believed. And it wasn't summer, so this mobilization was an 'extraordinary action.'

Now it was being extended by another three weeks, to February 10, and the mission was changed from construction to a 'terrorist protection exercise.'

Bullshit! Waldspeil thought. Any damn fool can tell that something's up.

National Guard units have been called up everywhere, from Hoover Dam, to Washington State, to Niagara, to the TVA area, and we are doing the same thing. 'Exercise' my fanny, he told himself.

He split his 75 men into five squads of ten men each, including the officers, and put each squad at one of the major substations surrounding the Dam. The other twenty-five he set to guard duty at the dam itself, and as a mobile reserve. Other units around Nevada were being called up to be stationed at other 'significant' terrorist targets in the state.

What he heard from his contacts in other state Guard units was that they were doing the same. He shook his head. A mile wide and an inch deep, he concluded.

Tijuana, Mexico

Two busloads of Chinese tourists crossed the border into San Diego, about sixty men in all. Their papers were in order; they had come in from Taiwan by cruise ship a week ago.

When they arrived in San Diego, they were met by a man from the Chinese consulate. The van he drove was one of three that had stopped at the San Diego port and picked up a shipment of weapons: sixty QCW-05's – the new Wēishēng Chōngfēng Qiāng, or 'Silenced Assault Gun', with ten QSZ-92's for the officers -- Jiǔ Shí ér Shoǔqiàng, or 'Type 92 Handgun'. Each of the three shipments had a single PF98 shoulder fired rocket launcher with a box of ammunition.

The QCW's had an effective firing range of 50 meters, and the attack's planners felt that 18 of them should be enough to take out even a defended substation. One man was assigned to the PF98 and another as his reloader. So sure were they of the effectiveness of the surprise nature of the attack, that the planners doubted that any defense would be mounted. Perhaps there would be a few security guards. The fat Americans and their lazy nature would no doubt take care of any opposition.

The three squads of twenty loaded into three smaller tour buses and set out for Las Vegas to play at tourists until they received the 'go' signal.

Naabeehó Bináhásdzo – The Navajo Reservation

Astrid Little Feather

Astrid double checked her figures. She had enough ACSR cable to handle everything but the feed to Colorado. She could get more from Illinois, but it wouldn't get here in time for Ms Lenti's deadline. She pulled the work crews off the Denver installation and put them on stringing cable to Las Vegas.

She'd like to have the cables strung a day or two early – whatever 'early' meant in this environment. That would give her a chance to test everything before 'it happened.' Assuming that 'it' was going to happen on or about the 1^st of February.

She was as ready as she was ever going to get. That meant that NPC was as ready as it was going to get. She arranged to take a couple of days off – which meant that she'd follow status reports from home.

Midnight

He was taking KITT on a cross-country trip! He packed light on clothes, except for taking some winter gear. He remembered to take the equipment necessary to repair Ali, if necessary. He packed extra batteries. In fact, he packed enough stuff to make an entire extra Ali. You can't be too prepared.

He bid Ramon 'adieu' and they hit the road. KITT was a marvel, to someone new to traveling in 'it'/'him.' Of course, the vehicle's brain was Io herself, so maybe it was a 'her.' But Midnight didn't think so. KITT was an entity in and of himself. Definitely a 'him.'

Io had said that they were going to hit the Washington, D.C., area in two days of driving. Wow! That's a lot of driving in only two days, he thought. Then he remembered that Io wouldn't tire and could drive 'round the clock. When he got in the Hummer, he found out just what Io meant by 'warp speed engaged.' She explained that she could identify every police vehicle exactly, and had a damn good handle on where the 'civilian' traffic was, too. That meant that the speedometer never went below 85 or 90 m.p.h., except when there was a cop ahead.

At first he was itchy to be in the driver's seat and not driving, but by the third time Io had to ask him to keep his hands off the steering wheel and not touch the brakes, he learned. He also learned to get a couple of extra sandwiches when they stopped for a 'bio-break.'