Storm Tide Rising: Blackout Volume 2 Read Online Free PDF Page B

finally had a list of user identities that had used a machine within two minutes of this page being copied. He cross referenced that list with the security clearance personnel records and eliminated more than half of the names.
    Terry turned and picked up the copy of his twins' birth certificates. He swallowed back the bitter taste of bile and forced himself to read the birth date of March 4th, 1987 , but he refused to remember the laughter and the tears of that day. He wouldn't think about the months he and his fiancé had enjoyed with their two precious girls. Memories of the late night planning for a big fall wedding that never happened kept pushing their way into his consciousness, and Terry kept pushing them away again.  He couldn't afford to think about the ghosts of the family that was almost his.
    Instead, he read the date written in red permanent marker again— November 23, 1988. It was the day he'd signed the papers and put his surviving daughter up for adoption. There was only one person Terry had ever told about that date, and he was on the move somewhere in central North Carolina right now, according to the Nav-Sat data. Terry looked at the message and then flipped it over and wrote all four names on his list on the back of the paper. He stared at those names and memorized them, burned them into his brain.
    All four of those names had made it past Terry's own personal screening process...and one of them was a traitor.
     

Ch. 6
    The Beaten Path
     
    Mike paused and leaned against one leg of a massive transmission line tower to wipe sweat from his forehead and his eyes. This was one of the main trunk lines that ran all the way to the Coallogix power plant down on the Catawba River, and the cut out that formed the corridor was nearly thirty yards wide and straighter than most roads. Now, the late August sun was barely visible over the tops of the western horizon, but even as a thin, crimson sliver it had significant heat to it.
    Alyssa stood back a few feet, a frown on her face. "Are you sure that's a good idea?" she asked, eyeing a bold black and white High Voltage sign about ten feet up on each leg of the tower.
    Mike shrugged and took a small sip from his water bottle. "When power was running through those lines, who knows. But right now, it's just a really tall jungle gym."
    Alyssa frowned deeper and didn't make any moves to join Mike. After a long moment, she sat on the grass and fumbled with her shoe laces. "This could be called kidnapping, you know," she said for the hundredth time.
    Mike growled and shot to his feet. "Fine," he snapped, "if you want to go back to your house and wait for what happens, be my guest. I risked my life to come find you and bring you to your sister. But never mind that. Go get yourself shot or kidnapped for real. I'm done arguing with you about it."
    "But my husband—" Alyssa began, and Mike cut her off.
    "I told you we would wait," Mike said, leveling a finger at Alyssa. "You said to go, not me. If you were half as worried about your husband as you're pretending to be, we'd still be back in your kitchen, jumping at every bump and scrape outside the door. Leaving was your call, lady, not mine."
    Suddenly, Alyssa's face crumbled and she buried her face in her hands. Her shoulders shook with hard silent sobs. Mike felt awkward and wasn't quite sure what to say. He stood and turned his back; running a hand through sweat-soaked short black hair, he tried to find a comfortable place to look and finally settled on his own shoes.
    "Look," Mike said after a long moment of awkward silence. Still staring at his shoes, he turned back to face Alyssa. "I'm sorry for snapping. I didn't mean to make you cry."
    "I'm not crying over you, you jerk!"  Alyssa growled, jumping to her feet. "My husband was having an affair, okay? Are you happy now? He was sleeping with some woman from his office, and I found out about it three weeks ago. I didn't know how to tell him I knew, so I didn't. And then