Off the Grid

by C. J. Box

  “You’re like a prehistoric throwback,” Jan said. “You should be on display in the Museum of Natural History.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I hardly saw my dad,” she said. “Of course, he was nice enough to me, considering he was right of Attila the Hun. He bought me nice things, but he was a lot more devoted to his new wife and his second family in Orange County than he ever was to ours. In fact, his wife was only five years older than I was when I met her. She insisted that I call her Athena, like we were sisters. She was nice enough, I guess.”

  Joe had no response.

  “I get my commitment to activism from my mother,” Jan said. “I grew up going to rallies with her. There was even a front-page photo in the Los Angeles Times of us being dragged out of an antiwar hearing by the cops. I was seven at the time and I had a pink ribbon in my hair. I was crying, but I looked really cute!”

  The way she said it made Joe smile.

  “The only thing my dad ever did for me, really, was establish a trust fund,” Jan said. “He wanted me to use it for college, which I did. He wanted me to use the rest for seed money to start a business like he did. Instead, I used it to help fund people like Ibby who could really use the money. If my dad knew what I did with his money, he’d have a heart attack. Which is sort of the point, you know.”

  “I figured,” Joe said.

  “I’m glad to know Sheridan was raised with a social conscience.”

  Joe eyed her.

  “You don’t approve of what she’s doing,” Jan said.

  “She’s twenty-one. She was raised right, thanks to her mother. She’s old enough to make her own decisions.”

  “That’s a surprisingly enlightened view,” Jan said with a hint of sarcasm.

  “Even if they’re stupid decisions,” Joe finished. “Because look where she is now.”

  “We can agree to disagree,” Jan said. “I admire her. I admire all of our volunteers. Most of them just want freedom and social justice. They want to take our country back.”

  Joe shrugged. He said, “Right now, I just want to take my daughter back.”

  “And I want to warn Ibby.”

  They each settled into their own thoughts for a quarter of a mile before Joe asked, “How many men were in those pickups this morning?”

  Her face darkened. “I think I counted eleven. They just kept coming into the café. I couldn’t believe it.”

  “Where were they from?”

  “Didn’t say, but not this country originally. That I would swear to. They were all of Middle Eastern origin.”

  “Were you scared?”

  She hesitated. “I hate to say that I was scared by their ethnicity—and certainly not by their religious beliefs,” she said. “It goes against everything I am. I hate it when people judge others by what they look like, or what color they are, or what god they believe in. I just hate that kind of intolerance.”

  After a long pause, she said, “But all that aside, they looked menacing and they had guns. So yes, damn you, I was scared.”

  “How did they get here?”

  “They came in four pickup trucks.”

  “I mean, where did they come from?”

  “I think Mexico,” she said. “They looked like they’d been driving all night. From what I could understand, they had no problem crossing the border at all, and they drove straight here. I know this only because Cooter speaks—I mean, spoke—a little Arabic. Ibby taught him some words. Cooter was asking them questions while he made them all orders of al kabsa.”

  “Were they in communication with anyone?” Joe asked.

  “They all had cell phones,” she said. “A couple had the latest iPhone. But no, they were pretty pissed off when they realized there was no signal. It really put them in a bad mood.”

  “Did any of them talk to you?”

  “They just glared at me. It was disgusting.”

  “What did Cooter do to get himself killed?” Joe asked.

  “Nothing. Cooter was just being Cooter.” She shivered, then continued. “I can still see it like it’s happening right in front of my eyes. A couple of them who acted like the leaders were in the kitchen watching him cook. He was still trying to talk to them in Arabic, you know, just typical Cooter small talk. He wasn’t interrogating them or anything. But they kept getting closer and closer to him like they were really interested in his technique.

  “Then, when he ladled the last order into a bowl and it was served, one of them in the kitchen just casually stepped behind him. I saw that he had a big knife. He grabbed Cooter’s head with one arm and cut his throat with the other hand. It was really quick, I mean really quick. There wasn’t a moment of hesitation, either. Blood shot out everywhere, like a hose. Then the killer started sawing at Cooter’s neck, back and forth. The sound was horrible. I’ll never forget it.”

  She said, “The others were so mesmerized they weren’t paying attention to me. They were just eating their food and watching like it was something on television. One of them stood up and filmed it on his cell phone. A couple of them said something in Arabic, like a chant or something.”

  Joe stopped. He looked Jan over closely.

  “How did you get away?”

  “I walked toward the back of the place like I was going to get sick in the bathroom. I heard one of them laugh at me. Then I busted out through the back door and took Cooter’s van. I knew he always left his keys in the ashtray. I was out of there before they could catch me.”

  “Why do you suppose they killed him?” Joe asked.

  “I think they wanted to eliminate any witnesses,” she said. “They didn’t want Cooter telling anyone they’d shown up, is my guess. And they were going to do the same thing to me.”

  “They didn’t chase you?” Joe asked.

  “They did, but it took a while for them to get organized. I drove east on I-80, and I’m sure they saw me get on the highway. What they didn’t know at the time was that, as soon as I was out of sight from them over a hill, I drove across the median and the other lane into the desert. I’m guessing they drove down the interstate for a long time looking for me before they realized that.”

  “I’m glad you made it,” Joe said.

  “I am, too,” she said.

  “What makes you think they’re going after this Ibby guy?”

  Jan paused and shook her head in disbelief. “Why else would they be here?”

  • • •

  AN HOUR LATER, they arrived at Joe’s green Ford Game and Fish pickup. It looked exactly like how he’d left it, he thought, and why shouldn’t it? Although it seemed like he’d been hiking for days, it had only been hours.

  Daisy was ecstatic, and she hopped up and down by the passenger door, waiting to be let in.

  Joe dropped his pack and climbed in the driver’s side, Daisy beside him.

  Before he turned the key, he said to Jan through the open window, “I know this is stupid, but . . .”

  Nothing.

  “I had to try,” he said, climbing out. Daisy remained inside, her head cocked expectantly.

  “How much do you know about these EMP pulses you told me about?” Joe asked. “Do the effects wear off? Will this truck ever run again?”

  She shook her head. “From what Ibby told me, they pretty much make electronics dead forever. But I’m no expert on this stuff. Remember, I’m just the facilitator and a fund-raiser for the cause.”

  Joe grunted. He removed the battery from the grizzly bear collar and used it to replace the old battery in the satellite phone. Although the collar batteries no longer had enough juice left to power the transmitter, he hoped the phone required less voltage. His shoulders slumped when it didn’t work.

  “Maybe you should just give up,” Jan said, sitting down in the shade of the pickup.

  “Maybe I should,”
Joe conceded, pulling the batteries from the phone and putting them back into the collar.

  When he did, he saw the light on the collar’s GPS unit flicker and he heard two dull clicks. He realized he had put the batteries back into the unit in a different configuration than when he’d pulled them out. Somehow, the new setup had pulled some power. His heart swelled.

  “Hear that?” he whispered to Jan. The collar clicked again. “It’s sending a signal.”

  “How long will it last?” she asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Who will see it?”

  “I’m not sure anyone will.”

  After a few beats, she said, “If someone notices the signal, won’t it just mean they’ll think they found the bear? Not us?”

  Joe sighed. “Yup.”

  He thought that the possibility of Jessica White, Marcia Mead, or Tyler Frink seeing the pings was remote at best. Why would they be sitting at their console days after they’d lost contact? Even if they were seeing it, he thought, they’d probably chalk it up to a technical anomaly.

  Especially when the clicks stopped, which they just had.

  “That’s all she wrote,” he said. “I got my hopes up there for a second.”

  “Oh well,” she said, standing and forcing a smile meant to be encouraging. “We’re just in the same boat as we were before.”

  He conceded that.

  • • •

  JOE ROOTED THROUGH HIS CAB, behind his seat, and through his gearbox for additional gear or food that might help them further. He valued a second chance at adding to their equipment, but he was hampered by the fact that whatever he gathered they had to carry on their backs. He slid a .22 revolver loaded with cracker shells into his pack, as well as a flare gun and two extra shells. He couldn’t conceive of their future usefulness, but he wanted to be well prepared, and now that they were back at his truck he got a second bite at the apple.

  The cracker loads were used to fire small explosives over the backs of game animals—elk, usually—who were eating a rancher’s hay. The flare pistol was supposed to be used to signal search-and-rescue aircraft or to mark his location.

  He gave Jan an old military daypack he’d found in the bottom of his gearbox that smelled of gasoline and elk blood. He’d discovered it in the woods a long time ago and had forgotten about it. Before he handed it down, he filled it with a coil of parachute cord, a firestarter, a box of 12-gauge shells, and a thick roll of duct tape.

  “You always need duct tape,” he said.

  “If you say so,” she grumped as she reached up and took the pack. “This thing stinks.”

  He located a faded King Ropes ball cap and a pair of old polarized fishing sunglasses and handed them to her as well. She reluctantly put them on.

  “And this,” he said, handing her his carbine. “I’ll take my shotgun along.”

  “I’ve never fired a gun in my life,” she said, holding the rifle as if it were a live snake.

  “High time to start, then,” he said.

  “Great,” she said in a mocking faux drawl. “Let’s go kill us some A-rabs.”

  “They might be Persians.”

  “Whatever.”

  • • •

  THEY WEREN’T A HUNDRED YARDS south of his dead pickup when they heard trucks rumbling across the desert. The sound came in waves carried by northeasterly breezes.

  They turned as one. Joe raised his binoculars.

  “Four white trucks,” he said. He lowered the glasses and scanned the horizon. The ridge where the pickup with the EMP had been was straight south.

  He gripped her elbow and said, “Run. Let’s get to those rocks before they see us.”

  • • •

  “THEY’RE APPROACHING my pickup cautiously,” he said to Jan. “The guys in the back of the trucks have their rifles up.”

  Joe watched them with his binoculars through the crack of an ancient yellow boulder that was one of several on the ridgeline about two hundred yards from his pickup. Jan kept hidden behind him.

  “I think they’re worried about the Game and Fish logo on the side of my truck,” he said. “They’re looking around, wondering where I am.”

  Three minutes later, Joe said, “They’ve decided I’m not there. Now they’re looting the cab and the gearbox. They’re throwing everything out on the ground.”

  Joe tried to think of anything of value he’d left behind, something the armed men might be able to use to their advantage. He couldn’t think of anything.

  “Crap,” Joe said. “One of them found one of my red uniform shirts behind the seat. He’s holding it up for the others. They’re getting a good laugh out of it.”

  “Is he putting it on?” Jan asked.

  “Nope. He threw it down and stomped on it.”

  “Subtle,” she said.

  As he watched them, he panned the lenses from the first truck to the third, looking closely at the vehicles. Texas plates, all right. He could make out a few numbers and letters, but he couldn’t see the entirety of a single plate. What he did see, though, made him gasp.

  “What?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure you want to know.”

  “Now I do,” she said, annoyed.

  He took a breath. He said, “They’ve got the head of the grizzly bear mounted on the grille of the first truck. And they’ve got the bear paws wired to the hoods of the second and third trucks. Man, that makes me mad.”

  The severed paws were the size of catcher’s mitts.

  “That’s disgusting,” she said. “And don’t forget poor Cooter.”

  “Poor Cooter,” Joe echoed. But he was thinking about GB-53.

  • • •

  JOE WATCHED IN SILENCE for a minute or two before he said, “Oh, great.”

  “What now?”

  “Listen.”

  There was a six-count before the whump.

  The smell of burning tires, fuel, and interior fabric would take moments to reach them.

  “They’re just fools,” Joe said.

  “Why?”

  “They’re burning my truck to the ground to prevent me from getting into it and driving off. They’re fools because they don’t know I can’t even start it.”

  “So the joke’s on them, I guess,” she said.

  “Yup,” he said with a heavy sigh.

  • • •

  JOE DIDN’T STAND UP until the four trucks and all the men in them were gone, but he could see their dust trails clearly. They were headed south.

  Toward the old sheep ranch.

  26

  Nate stayed out of the sight lines of the oncoming vehicles—including his Jeep, which was being driven by the Yemeni—and slipped back into the office in the third shed, assuming the armory would be there.

  It was: behind a sliding door made of cheap paneling like the rest of the room.

  When he saw the huge steel gun safe, he said, “Shit.”

  The full-sized steel Liberty safe had a high-gloss finish and a five-spoke handle mounted next to a combination dial. He knew that a safe of that size cost north of five thousand dollars, which meant Ibby was serious about keeping weapons out of the hands of everybody except Saeed and his men.

  Nate had some experience cracking small combination locks by placing downward pressure on the lock itself, clearing the tumblers, and then starting at 0, but there was no way he could attempt to open a safe of this size and complexity. Judging by how heavy and stout it was, he doubted he could open it with power tools or even explosives.

  Would Suzy Gudenkauf know the combination? Probably not, but it was worth running her down and asking her. Ibby certainly knew, and so did Saeed.

  Nate was flummoxed and he felt something in his chest that was unfamiliar: a stab of panic. He needed to contact Tyrell and Volk and tell th
em where he was and what was going on. Despite Ibby’s careful planning and blithe assurances that the EMPs would minimize casualties, Nate knew better. Plans like that never worked out as envisioned.

  Plus, the presence of Saeed and his men—and the possible new additions Suzy had warned of—meant that the likelihood of them concluding their operations after the Utah Data Center was unlikely at best. With weapons like those, Nate thought, the incentive to keep going would be mighty. Extremely powerful mobile EMP devices rolling anonymously across the nation’s highway system could be a disaster, and something Ibby couldn’t control—provided he actually intended to stop with the UDC. The devices, if they worked as Ibby had described them, could wreak havoc beyond belief.

  Plus, he needed to get Sheridan off the ranch without creating a situation that drew attention to the act.

  And most of all, he needed his weapon back.

  Nate stepped back and closed the door. He could hear the two vehicles enter the ranch compound and drive into the second shed just beyond the office wall. Both motors were turned off and doors slammed shut. There was a muffled conversation in Arabic.

  How would he explain being inside the office when they arrived?

  • • •

  “SO HOW ARE MY BIRDS?” Nate asked Saeed while he strode through the shed door toward his parked Jeep.

  Saeed looked up in surprise. The Yemeni and the Syrian both squared up, the Yemeni reaching across his body and touching the grip of his weapon. They looked to Saeed for guidance on how to proceed. There was something going on between the three of them, Nate thought, and his presence was interfering with it. Both gunmen looked eager and ready to unsling the rifles from their shoulders and take him out of the picture.

  He ignored them while he pulled on a heavy welder’s glove he’d taken from the bed of his Jeep and lifted the gyrfalcon to inspect it.

  “I need to feed my guys,” Nate said to Saeed. “I’ve been waiting for you to get back so that I could.”