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Baxter nodded and said, “That’s the main thing about Florida. The heat and humidity. I was born and raised in Belle Glade, and in the summer, it gets so hot and humid you can’t breathe. We didn’t have air-conditioning until I was twelve, and Mom started getting sick from the heat and the air when they burned the sugarcane fields. My dad didn’t believe in it. Air-conditioning. Said it made you weak.”
It was the single longest thing he’d ever said to her.
The Toyota Tundra looked rough—gray, ten years old, door dings—and when Letty asked about it, Baxter grunted, “I like old Tundras. I’m a fanboy.”
“Will you like old Tundras if we break down in the middle of the Sonoran Desert?”
“Not gonna happen,” he said. “The truck is perfect. I maintain it myself. Get in.”
The truck had a crew cab with a short bed, and they threw their bags in the backseat. The interior, Letty admitted to herself, was flawless and comfortable, with aftermarket leather bucket seats. A green deodorizer tree hung from the rearview mirror, and a black carbon-fiber clamp-like mechanism extended from the dashboard between the driver’s and the passenger’s positions.
Baxter took an iPad out of his bag and clipped it into the clamp and said, “It doesn’t look new, but it is. Nothing on it but bullshit. It’s on a swivel, so either one of us can use it. Hooked into Verizon. Password is 3890@7703. If you forget it, and I’m not around, you can look it up on your phone by searching for the geographic coordinates for Washington, DC. Remember to put the ‘at’ sign halfway through.”
“Got it,” she said. And, “We need to talk, since we didn’t on the plane or back in Washington. Before we get to the motel.”
“I know.”
Baxter put on a pair of black-rimmed glasses and wheeled the truck out of its parking spot, then stopped as a metallic rattling noise came from the truck bed. “What the fuck is that? It can’t be the truck, unless some asshole ran it into something.”
He pulled over, popped the truck bed cover, looked inside, relocked it, got back in the truck, and said, “Drum set. Gotta stop in the morning and get some padding or Bubble Wrap. I’m not gonna listen to that thing rattle all the way to the Pacific Ocean.”
They drove outto the freeway in silence, then Baxter said, “I know I’m not supposed to try to hustle you into bed and I won’t.”
“Good. We need to be clear about that,” Letty said.
“I’m clear about it,” he said. “I’m too scared to think about sex. Besides, you’re not my type. I like robust blondes. You’re not one.And I’m clear about the fact that I don’t want to die out there. Did you even listen to what Delores was saying about these guys?”
“Delores?”
“Mary Johnson. Her real name is Delores Nowak. I’m not supposed to tell you that, but fuck ’em, I’m the one whose ass is on the line. If you read even a little between the lines, the Ordinary People are willing to kill off a few hundred people, or maybe more, because that’s sure as shit is what’s gonna happen if they pull the plug on the heat in the Twin Cities in February.”
“You think so?”
“I know so. Remember when the power grid crashed in Texas a few years ago? More than two hundred people died and that only went on for a few days. And it wasn’t really that cold. Not like a northern city. The Ordinary People gotta know what they’ll be doing. Killing us? We wouldn’t even be a pimple on the ass of what they’re planning to do.”
Letty shrugged: “We can handle it. We don’t have to make lifelong friends with these people—we just have to identify them and call the FBI.”
“Bullshit. I’m gonna have to talk to them. You will, too. I don’t want to die for Delores’s little Hail Mary pass,” Baxter said. “What they really need to do is send some guys like me up to the possible targets, shut down the gas hardware long enough to clean out the corrupt software, if it really is corrupt, and install new stuff, with better security. This sneaking around in LA is crazy.”
“They may be doing that,” Letty said.
“What?” Baxter frowned as he glanced over at her.
“I talk to security people all the time, at Homeland. They believe in compartmentalization like the pope believes in Jesus,” Letty said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if NSA is working on a backupthat you don’t know about. They didn’t tell you because they want you focused on Ordinary People. They want to identify them because they want to stick guns in their ears. Let them know if the Twin Cities or Bozeman or Rochester goes down, they’re all getting the needle. No money, just the needle.”
“That’s harsh, but you could be right,” Baxter said.
“One more thing. They’re lying about something.You’relying about something, since you’re NSA, too. You want to tell me what it is?”
Baxter steered around a slow-moving Prius and said, “I don’t know what they’re lying about. I know they’re lying about something. Interesting that you picked up on it, though.”
“You’re telling me the truth now?”
“I am,” Baxter said. He nodded, and she believed him.
Letty knew her coverbut hadn’t gotten the details on Baxter’s. She asked about it.
“I got it on a flash drive, I gotta memorize it on the way to LA,” Baxter said. “You’ll have to take the wheel for a while. We need to be on the road at least twelve hours a day. I’ll drive eight, if you can take four in the middle.”
