Chapter 8 - the county went dark
At 12:01 a.m., every traffic light in Mill Creek went black.
At 12:02, the emergency dispatch network failed.
At 12:03, automated messages began appearing on county officials' phones announcing a coordinated cyberattack.
At 12:04, Blackridge Response Solutions activated the emergency authority granted by contracts nobody outside a small circle had known existed.
By 12:10, private armored vehicles were positioned outside the courthouse, water plant, electrical substation, and communications center.
Daniel Rourke had built a coup that looked like disaster management.
Inside the rail yard, Jack Hart was trying to keep Cole Mercer alive.
The first explosion had blown open the east wall.
Federal agents entered through smoke.
Blackridge guards fired overhead and retreated.
They did not appear interested in holding the warehouse.
That worried Jack.
Rourke had planned to leave.
Cole lay behind a steel support column clutching Tyler's laptop.
"You okay?"
Jack nodded.
"Barnes?"
They looked.
The chair was empty.
Blood on the floor.
Rourke had taken him.
Jack cursed.
Elena appeared through the smoke wearing body armor.
"Jack."
She reached them.
"Are you hit?"
"No."
"Cole?"
"Fine."
She pointed toward the laptop.
"Please tell me that's what I think it is."
"Original audio cache."
"Good."
Jack looked toward the exit Rourke used.
"He has Barnes."
"Let him."
"No."
Elena stared.
"Barnes knows where Webb moved the evidence."
"Then Rourke will force him to talk."
"Exactly."
Elena understood.
"If Rourke gets Webb's files, he can destroy the paper trail."
Jack nodded.
Cole opened the laptop.
"Maybe we don't need Barnes."
They looked at him.
"Webb said locker 614."
"Barnes said he moved the originals."
"Maybe not all of them."
Cole searched Tyler's cached audio.
"There could be more before the murder."
Elena crouched beside him.
They listened through fragments.
Most were useless.
Tyler talking to his friend.
Bicycle noise.
Wind.
Then a recording from twenty minutes earlier.
Tyler had apparently stopped outside a convenience store.
Two men stood nearby speaking.
One was Nathan Webb.
The other voice was unfamiliar.
Webb said, "If they come for me, package goes to the church."
The other man answered, "Which church?"
"The one Barnes never enters."
Elena looked at Cole.
"Any idea?"
Cole nodded slowly.
"Saint Matthew's."
"Why?"
"Barnes had a fight with Father Callahan years ago. Hasn't stepped inside since."
Jack closed the laptop.
"Then we go."
Elena blocked him.
"No."
"Again?"
"Look outside."
Through the broken wall, Mill Creek glowed unevenly in the distance.
Half the county had no power.
Roadblocks were forming.
Blackridge communications vehicles moved along the highway.
"This is bigger now."
Jack said, "Which is why Webb's evidence matters."
"Which is why I'm sending agents."
Jack looked at her.
"Your agency is compromised."
"My team isn't."
"How sure?"
Elena held his gaze.
"Seventy percent."
Cole muttered, "Comforting."
Jack shook his head.
"I go."
Elena exhaled.
"Why are you impossible?"
"Professional training."
Despite herself, she almost smiled.
Then her phone rang.
Only satellite service remained.
She answered.
Sarah's voice came through.
"Elena?"
Jack took the phone.
"Sarah."
"Where are you?"
"Rail yard."
"Tyler found something."
Jack looked at Cole.
"What?"
Sarah passed the phone.
Tyler's voice was weak.
"Dad?"
"I'm here."
"The laptop."
"We have it."
"Good. Look in my project folder called Signal Test."
Cole opened it.
Inside were source files.
Tyler continued.
"When the audio buffer runs, it uploads compressed checkpoints to my school server."
Elena stared.
"You built redundant backup?"
Tyler sounded embarrassed.
"My teacher kept telling us not to trust local storage."
Jack smiled.
"Your teacher is getting a gift."
Cole connected through a secure federal hotspot.
The school server responded.
Files appeared.
More than the laptop held.
One was twelve minutes long.
They played it.
Nathan Webb and another man speaking outside the convenience store.
Webb said, "I put enough in Saint Matthew's to burn Barnes."
"What about Rourke?"
"That's somewhere else."
"Where?"
Webb lowered his voice.
"With the person nobody would ever suspect."
Jack leaned closer.
The other man asked, "Who?"
Webb answered.
"Jack Hart."
Silence.
Jack stared at the screen.
Cole looked at him.
Elena whispered, "What?"
Jack shook his head.
"I never met Webb privately."
Tyler's recording continued.
The other man said, "The janitor?"
Webb laughed.
"Exactly. I slipped it into his supply cage yesterday. He'll think it's old courthouse junk."
Jack's mind raced.
His janitorial storage room.
Basement courthouse.
Webb had hidden something there without Jack knowing.
Elena said, "What does your supply cage contain?"
"Cleaning chemicals. repair tools. old records waiting for disposal."
"Could you identify something new?"
"Maybe."
Cole looked at the dark county outside.
"The courthouse is under Blackridge control."
Jack nodded.
"Then that's where Rourke is going."
Elena said, "Not if Barnes doesn't know."
Jack looked at her.
"Barnes had access to my locker."
Cole remembered.
"The spare house key."
Exactly.
Barnes had searched Jack's work locker.
If Webb hid evidence in the supply cage, Barnes might have found it.
Jack's phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
He answered.
Rourke spoke.
"Jack."
"Where's Barnes?"
"Alive."
"How's his shoulder?"
"He's complaining."
"What do you want?"
"Come to the courthouse."
Jack looked at Elena.
Rourke continued.
"Bring Tyler's laptop."
"No."
"Then Barnes dies."
"That sounds like your problem."
Rourke laughed.
"Still pretending you don't care."
"I care about evidence."
"So do I."
Jack heard Barnes groaning faintly in the background.
Then Rourke said, "Your supply room contains something that belongs to me."
Jack's eyes narrowed.
"You found it."
"No."
"Then Barnes didn't find it either."
Silence.
Jack had guessed correctly.
Rourke continued.
"He found a note."
"What note?"
"From Webb."
Jack waited.
Rourke read it.
"If you're reading this, Sheriff, you're already too late."
Cole smiled despite the danger.
Jack almost did too.
Rourke did not sound amused.
"Come to the courthouse."
The call ended.
Elena said, "Absolutely not."
Jack looked toward the distant dark outline of the county building where he had spent five quiet years emptying trash.
All that time, people had ignored him.
Judges talked around him.
Deputies joked around him.
Contractors left papers in bins.
Barnes treated him like furniture.
Nathan Webb had apparently noticed the same thing.
The invisible janitor.
The man nobody suspected.
Jack said, "Webb hid the evidence with me because he knew nobody looked at me."
Cole nodded.
Elena sighed.
"And now?"
May you like
Jack looked at the courthouse.
"Now we're going to make that mistake cost them everything."
