I don’t know, I don’t know! Tears dropped onto my lap. Why were they chasing me in the first place? As if I could stop any of this.
“They won’t do that,” I said. “I’ll tell the FBI that Harcroft and Wade are lying.”
“Oh, like they’re just going to believe you over their own buddies.”
Now it was my turn to be silent.
“Look, Mom, if I go, maybe I can clear up these lies about you. I won’t tell them where you are. And while you’re safe, once the FBI starts investigating Harcroft and Wade, they’ll find some dirt on ’em.”
Maybe. And maybe she was just being naïve.
Emily sighed. “Thing is, no one, not even the real FBI, can stop the attack from happening tonight—unless we find out what Raleigh means. If that word is the key to the encrypted message in the first place.”
What if that encrypted message had nothing to do with stopping the attack? It could be nonsense, for all we knew.
But Raleigh had to mean something. Even now I could picture Morton’s stricken face as he mouthed the word.
“I gotta go, Mom.”
“Emily, no. Please let me go.”
“Mom. Stay where you are. You’re safe at Aunt Margie’s.”
I quit pacing, unable to move. Emily and I hung on the phone, breathing. Argued out.
If this was all true, if the electricity was being taken down tonight, what would happen to us? To our country?
“Hannah!” Mom’s distant voice trailed into the bedroom. “Your breakfast is ready!”
“Mom,” Emily said in my ear, “I’m losing time. I have to go.”
I knew she had to. Millions of people, maybe even lives, depended on the attack being stopped. But why my daughter? “No, Emily. Please. I’ll do it.”
“No way. Not. If you call the police, they’ll arrest you. Then I won’t be able to call you and tell you what happened. Don’t do that.”
I hung my head, spent and sick to the core.
“Okay,” I said. “But watch out for a young, lanky guy with a buzz cut and a Southern drawl. He’s no FBI agent you can trust.”
“Got it.”
“The other one was older. And muscular. But I don’t think you have to worry about him. I shot him so many times—” I pressed my hand against my forehand. “I think I killed him.”
“Mom.” Emily’s voice turned quiet. “You had to.”
“I know.”
“He would have killed you. And Grand.”
“I know.” But I didn’t. I didn’t know much of anything anymore.
The phone clicked in my ear. I stiffened. “Emily?”
“Oh, great,” Emily mumbled. “Work’s calling me on the other line. Gotta go, Mom. I’ll call you soon, promise. Love you.”
The line went dead.
Chapter 24
SPECIAL HOUSE SELECT COMMITTEE INVESTIGATION INTO FREENOW TERRORIST ACTIVITY OF FEBRUARY 25, 2013
SEPTEMBER 16, 2013
TRANSCRIPT
Representative ELKIN MORSE (Chairman, Homeland Security Committee): Sergeant, I think we need to back up here. Because I still do not understand parts of your testimony. You are claiming that on that fateful day of February 25, even as you and your department maintained possession of the video, instead of focusing on it, you saw fit to spend the day pursuing fifty-five-year-old Hannah Shire and her eighty-two-year-old mother. Who was struggling with dementia, I might add.
Sergeant CHARLES WADE (Sheriff’s Department Coastside): Hindsight is twenty-twenty, Chairman Morse. As I’ve been telling you all day, at the time it seemed the best course of action.
MORSE: As I understand it, you were also trying to track Hannah Shire by her cell phone?
WADE: We weren’t tracking it at that time. I had put in a request to do so. But gaining permission to track her, and setting up the plan with the cell phone provider, took time. Not until later in the day did an attempt to track become possible.
MORSE: All right. We will return to that. Regarding Deputy Harcroft, did you have any knowledge of what he was doing on the day of February 25?
WADE: Certainly. He was assisting me in the investigation of the two homicides—Morton Leringer and Nathan Eddington. Plus we were assisting the San Carlos police regarding the homicide of Deputy Williams.
MORSE: As a sergeant in the Moss Beach sheriff’s substation, did you oversee all the deputies beneath you in rank?
WADE: There are four sergeants at our substation. On that day I was intensely focused on the cases at hand. Deputy Harcroft was assisting in those cases, as were other deputies. I oversaw those deputies, but I wasn’t aware moment to moment what every deputy in the substation was doing.
MORSE: Yes, quite. That was the problem, Sergeant Wade.