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CHAPTER 18

Dallas, Texas

Friday

11:30 p.m. Central Time


“I have to be somewhere in a couple of hours,” Marcus Dorman said. Leaning back in the reclining leather seat, through the window in his private jet he could see planes in the distance taking off and landing. His security staff and his personal assistant, Meena, stood by the open doorway where the stairs led down to the taxiway.

“Then I guess we need to make this short,” the man reporting to him said. “There are now four one-hundred-megawatt battery energy storage systems online in Texas. First ever like them in the country.”

“Yes, I know this. I paid the Power Construction Group of Greater Dallas to build them over the past two decades. Broad Scope Power is owned by a handful of major shareholders and I happen to be in the majority.” Dorman tapped the ends of the fingers on both hands together in front of him. “What I want to know is the status of the five new prototype systems and when they will be online.”

“We have crews working all three shifts and we should be ready to roll them out in about a month,” the man replied.

“Make it sooner,” Dorman said.

“That’s probably not possible.”

“Okay, then. We will just shut the program down. Starting right now.”

“There are thousands of jobs! We can’t just shut the projects down now. It would create ghost towns around the areas that—”

“Then do it faster. Hire more people. Two weeks,” Dorman said. “And we will need to shut down the batteries that are currently online for a forty-eight-hour inspection on my word.”

“That will cause blackouts across Texas.”

“Yes. Yes, it will. But you will do it when I contact you. Or I will pull the plug on these projects.”

“You just…you…can’t—”

“I can. I will. Unless you make happen what you must make happen when I tell you to make it happen.” Dorman noted the time in his virtual view. “Now, go. Get it done. I have to be somewhere else very soon.”

“I uh…”

“Meena, please show our guest out,” Dorman said. “And let’s button up and move on to Boca Chica.”


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Framed