Electric Power

Homicide detective Rage is hiking alone on Mount Rainier. She is on a seldom traveled path, in the ice, snow, and has seen no one. She hears pop, pop. It makes her nervous. At her camp she sets it up and sleeps away from it. Someone shoots up her camp and takes all her supplies. But she hid some like a good Seal. She goes across the glacier and starts down. It takes several days, and she is listed as missing. The Colonel and officer Jones find her.
Her car was rigged to blow when driven but discovered.
The Colonel finds a small but strong heat source on the mountain where Rage might have heard shots. it melts when they take it to study. Jones finds similar devices all over the world, they are talking to each other.
While they all try to discover the shooters, someone is buying coal power plants, working or not. A dark-head beauty in a Seattle Penthouse has charts of every power plant in the Americans and their ability to generate.
A magnet pulse from deep space pass through the earth and sun. In response the sun sends out a massive solar flare. Some nations heed the warning with only minutes to react.
The Madam in the Penthouse is the only game in town and has power to sell.