Off the Grid (A Gerrit O'Rourke Novel)

by Young, Mark

  She entered and closed the door behind her. She moved about the room, prowling like a cat ready to spring, long black hair pulled back into a silky ponytail and a body that would make most men sit up and take notice.

  And she knew it.

  She looked back, almost defiantly, knowing she could make most men succumb. He had no doubt she used this to her advantage. Her dark, inviting eyes watched him like a feline eyeing a mouse.

  “I know Kane said you’d get a call—and I did call because I always do what Kane wants.” She offered a smile. “But I could not help myself. I wanted to see who my boss had picked. I have heard so much about you, Gerrit.”

  “And I’ve heard so little about you, Miss…”

  “Collette. That’s all you need to know about me.”

  “Well, Collette, now that we’ve met, maybe you can tell me what you do for Kane?”

  She shot him a sultry look. “Now, Doctor, Kane and I must keep our secrets. You understand.” She looked at him with amusement.

  He walked over to the door and opened it. “Well, Collette, it’s time I get to work. Will I see you again when this is over?”

  She moved toward the door. “Oh, we will meet again. You can count on it.” Collette seemed to float down the hallway. He watched her walk all the way to the elevator. She turned and smiled back before closing the elevator door.

  He gathered the briefcase and his coat and slipped on a black ivy hat he’d picked up in London. The hat—like that worn by comic strip antihero Andy Capp—might break up his profile, make witnesses later think long and hard about what Gerrit really looked like.

  As he walked through the lobby, he glanced around to see if Collette lingered nearby, but she seemed to have vanished. He piled into a taxi and directed the driver to deliver him to the Rathaus, Vienna’s historic city hall, located several blocks from his destination.

  “American?” The driver eyed him from the rearview mirror.

  Gerrit nodded, turning his attention elsewhere. He did not want to engage the driver in small talk. Better to fade from the driver’s mind as quickly as possible. In case witnesses were sought later.

  Jeez, I’m thinking like some kind of spook…or crook.

  Twenty minutes later, Gerrit rolled out of the cab after leaving a modest tip with the driver. Clutching the briefcase, he stared up at the Rathausmann, a statuesque knight standing guard on top of the tallest tower above Vienna’s city hall. He read somewhere this figure in Renaissance-style armor had become a symbol representing the centuries-old conflict between Vienna and the Crown.

  He related to the lone figure above, standing guard between local and federal forces, protecting the citizenry. He studied the building’s architecture—a blending of neo-Gothic, baroque, and other period influences—before weaving his way through the Rathauspark and square, strolling toward his destination while searching for signs of counter surveillance.

  No one seemed out of place or interested in his travel.

  Once clear of the park, he began making his way along a sidewalk, eyeing street signs and numbers on the buildings to get his bearing. He saw the street he sought and followed the numbered dwellings until he spotted his destination about fifty yards farther down the block.

  An older couple, maybe in their seventies, walked arm in arm ahead of him. He slowed his pace so he wouldn’t pass them. In what seemed like an eternity, he approached the target location, a modern four-story apartment building with a white stone facade for the first two floors and pale-yellow stucco walls rising to the third and fourth floors. At the building’s peak, a studio—Adleman’s apartment—seemed to have been created in what once was the attic, creating a fifth floor.

  Inside, a high, narrow door—solid oak with dome headers—led to a black-and-white tiled hallway and a lift. He entered, pressed the button, and the engine whirled as the elevator slowly climbed. It jerked to a stop and the door rolled open.

  After pulling on a pair of latex gloves, he knocked on Adleman’s apartment door, fingering the key he’d been given as he waited. He wasn’t sure what he’d say if anyone came to the door. The place was supposed to be empty. The scientist reportedly used this place to meet with other cyber sleuths when they were in Europe.

  He gave it a minute, then used the key to gain entry. He called out to announce his presence. No one answered. Three large bay windows allowed the occupants a bird’s-eye view of the Rathaus towers with their neo-Gothic fingers clawing at the sky.

  He turned from the view and saw an opened briefcase on a desktop near the far wall. He walked over to it. Inside were a bundle of business cards with Ron Adleman embossed in gold lettering. Right guy. Right briefcase. So where was the scientist?

  Gerrit made a cursory search of the place. A door leading to the back bedroom sat ajar. He scanned the bedroom and bath. Empty. He exited the bedroom and searched the kitchen area and a sitting room before returning to the desk in the living room.

  Satisfied he was alone, Gerrit went through Adleman’s briefcase. It took him several minutes before he saw the file he was looking for. It was the last of about fifteen files, each one bulging with information—none of it relevant to what he’d been sent to find.

  Until the last file.

  Upon opening it, he smiled and reached for a thumb drive wedged in a slot inside the briefcase cover. He glanced at the hard copy and saw Adleman’s abbreviated name, Ron12Aldlemn, and two letters: PW.

  Password?

  Next to those letters were a sequence of letters and numbers written in pencil.

  He reached inside his own briefcase and withdrew the laptop he’d been given. Inserting the portable thumb drive, he flicked on the computer and activated the removable disk drive. After typing Adleman’s user name and password, a list of files emerged on the screen, some of them matching the hard copy in the scientist’s briefcase. He scrolled down the list until he came to a file titled Quantum Leap, a name that conjured up an old television series back in the eighties. He clicked on the file name, and his laptop strained to load the document.

  He heard the elevator activate in the hallway. Someone was coming up from a lower floor. Tapping his fingers on the desktop, he waited until his screen opened up to the file menu. The file creator had categorized these documents on a number of headings, including Correspondence and Latest Findings.

  He settled back in the plush chair as he read the first e-mail from Adleman. The writer outlined a project that had nothing to do with exposing government secrets. Kane was wrong. Instead, Adleman and his colleagues seemed to be concerned about an organization aimed at bending the knee of sovereign nations to serve a greater good, a global effort to consolidate and control political power. They didn’t identify the organization but indicated that the safety of Adleman and others might be at risk due to this unnamed group, which seemed bent on influencing or controlling a number of scientists from several nations.

  One e-mail titled Use of Force and Violence immediately caught his attention. Adleman’s group listed a series of incidents in chronological order—car accidents, shootings, alleged suicides, and bombings—going back more than a decade. He quickly scanned through the document until he came to 2004. There, among other incidents, a reference had been made of two people killed in a Seattle car bombing.

  The report gave details of his parents’ murders.

  Gerrit felt like someone had just sucked the air out of the room, felt his insides tighten.

  Another thought came to mind and he clicked on the document’s history. It had been e-mailed to others. After opening the message, he clicked on the Send To list. One name made the hair on his neck stand up.

  Joseph O’Rourke. His uncle.

  Something wasn’t right. Nothing that Kane mentioned could be found in these files. Instead, he found information that suggested certain scientists—and their loved ones—appeared to have been targeted.

  Glancing up, he looked around the room again. He rose and began going from room to room, searc
hing for something—anything—that would shed light on why he was sent to this apartment. He came up empty. Finally reaching the bathroom, he looked around and noticed the shower curtain drawn across the tub. He had missed that on his first sweep of the place. He flung the curtain back and saw a man lying in the tub.

  Dead.

  Ron Adleman.

  The high and low wail of a police siren pierced the silence. He bolted to the bay window and saw an emergency vehicle more than five blocks away heading in his direction. Shutting down his laptop, Gerrit yanked out the thumb drive and tossed both inside his briefcase, slamming the lid closed.

  He glanced around the place to see if he’d left anything behind, then grabbed his briefcase and dashed through the doorway into the hallway. Pulling off the gloves as he ran, he made it downstairs and out the lobby as the siren grew more intense.

  He was a half a block away before the first car—its blue lights flashing—screamed past. Almost in a blur, the vehicle’s gray, blue, and red markings streaked by, the word Polizei in white letters on the side of the car.

  The officer shot a look at Gerrit as he drove past, seeming to study him. Gerrit walked until he reached the corner. Turning, he saw officers running toward the front door of the apartment next to where he’d emerged. More police cars were coming.

  They’re going to the wrong place.

  As he rounded the corner, another thought began to nag at him. They were sent to the wrong address. Someone was watching him? He had no time to think this through. Time to run.

  Gerrit clutched the briefcase as he looked for a cab. There was one stop he must make before returning to his hotel. Then he was getting out of town as fast as possible. This operation just took a turn for the worse, and he must figure out what just happened.

  He knew one thing. If he stuck around, sooner or later he might end up behind bars.

  I just became a person of interest.

  Chapter 16

  Gerrit turned the key in the lock to his hotel room and slipped inside a darkened room. No one lurked outside to talk to him. Good sign. He took two steps toward the bedroom before he sensed someone in the room. He turned to face the intruder, mentally searching for something close to use as a weapon.

  A lamp flicked on, illuminating Richard Kane’s features. “I see you managed to escape unscathed, Gerrit. You bring anything back with you?”

  The two men eyed each other. Gerrit looked away, searching for anyone else standing in the shadows. They seemed to be alone.

  “The briefcase and everything with it is lying at the bottom of the Danube.”

  “What a waste. That computer was a gift to you.”

  “Was Adleman’s body another one of your gifts?”

  “That was a surprise to us, too.”

  Gerrit couldn’t tell whether the man was lying. “Once they discover the body, the cops may well come looking for me as a person of interest if they start canvassing the neighborhood. Someone might have seen me.”

  “Don’t worry. We will protect you. Just leave Vienna as soon as possible.”

  “Protect me from what? From whom?”

  “Have a seat, Gerrit. We need to talk.”

  Gerrit remained standing. What the heck was Kane up to?

  “Suit yourself.” Kane paused. “I have had my eye on you for some time. You’re a man with many talents and I want you to come to work for me…for us. You’ll be well compensated, and you will be doing work that is really meaningful. To you. To our country. To the entire global community.”

  “I already have a job. And I have unfinished business back at home.”

  “I know why you’re really in Seattle. It’s about your folks and uncle, right?” Kane hunched forward. “I can help you with that unfinished business, Gerrit. Whatever it takes. I…we…want you to find out what happened to them. I promise you unlimited resources will be at your disposal. And you can use whatever contacts we have to open those doors. You need to put this business behind you in order to focus on the future. Our future.”

  “And who is we?”

  “I was hoping you’d ask that question. We are all those who believe we are entering a new era, a new world order that recognizes the potential and danger of new technology.”

  Gerrit shifted the weight on his feet.

  Kane clasped his hand together as if to pray, resting the tips of his fingers under his chin. “Technology is about to lead us into a world beyond comprehension of the average citizen. I know you are aware of these developments as a scientist and recognize the potential.”

  Gerrit found himself nodding, even though he disliked the man sitting across the room. “This is not new. Governments have been gearing up for years.”

  Kane shot him a look of irritation. “Governments do not have a clue what the future holds. They are too busy looking over their shoulders, making sure their backsides are covered, that they don’t see what is right in front of them.”

  The man rose and began pacing the room. “Molecular manufacturing—nanotechnology some call it—is about to make significant breakthroughs that will make the industrial revolution look like a hiccup in man’s history. On the military side, biological, nuclear, and chemical weapons capable of mass destruction will be made cheaply and numerously while hidden in quantities too small for us to detect. Rogue nations will be able to join the arms race—nations we have been able to prevent from getting their hands on this technology and resources so far. The rules are about to change and these countries will soon become viable threats to our national security.”

  Gerrit watched the man, still pacing, seem to lose himself in his own one-sided conversation. He’d just let Kane ramble.

  “Not to speak of the economic tsunami that will roll over us when molecular manufacturing becomes feasible on the open market. Inexpensive manufacturing costs coupled with replication of designs will cause economic upheaval and environmental devastation on a global scale never before seen.”

  He stopped pacing and turned toward Gerrit. “We have to contain and control this before it gets out of hand.”

  “Who is we?” Gerrit asked again, trying to prod the man into divulging those Kane represented. “The United States has been on top of this for more than a decade. Isn’t that what the National Nanotechnology Initiative and the White House Office of Science and Technology policy is all about? Coordinating efforts so our country can control and contain this information?”

  “Ever known a politically motivated body to do what is in the country’s best interests?” Kane scoffed. “They are too busy protecting their own budgets and keeping their own power base to spend time on the greater good.”

  “So people like you—and whoever you work for—have the country’s best interests at heart?”

  Kane shook his head. “Not just our country’s—the world’s. The whole world must share in these breakthroughs with some controls and power resting with a few reasonable leaders.”

  “And who decides this?”

  “The group I represent will decide this. We will keep politics and self-interest out of the equation.”

  Gerrit couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Listen to yourself. Whomever you represent, they are setting themselves up as the ultimate power brokers. The ruling elite. How does democracy and representation by the people factor into all this?”

  “People have elected representatives to protect the country’s interest. These representatives—like Senator Summers—can see the national security issues voters might not recognize. We in the U.S. work to ensure these interests are protected. In turn, I work with other like-minded individuals around the world who are working with world leaders, representing countries with similar agendas. Together, we can help shape international policy to allow these responsible countries to retain control collectively in this new era.”

  “You mean a one-world order?”

  “I mean a one-world collective looking out for the interests of all people. An organization of leaders powerful enoug
h to cut through regional politics to shape human history, to effectively protect our world from those who wish to destroy us.”

  “As if the United Nations has done a bang-up job getting people to work together. And how do you decide who’s the enemy?” Gerrit asked.

  “The world community of leaders, supported by their constituents, will delegate those decisions to those in the best position to protect our global community.”

  “You mean someone like yourself?”

  Kane shrugged one shoulder. “Whoever is called upon to serve.”

  “And what are you willing to do?”

  “Whatever it takes.” Kane’s reply came back like a rifle shot. He slowly lowered himself into his chair. “My question to you, boy—are you willing to do whatever it takes? The lines are drawn and the war has begun. I need to know which side you’re on.”

  “What happens if the interests of the United States conflicts with your global community’s interests? Which side will you take?”

  Leaning forward, Kane peered at him with hardened eyes. “I choose the survival of mankind.”

  “Even if it means bringing the U.S. to its knees in submission to other countries?”

  The man leaned back. “Which side do you choose?”

  “Time for me to head home, Kane. I consider myself a patriot. We will never see eye to eye on this issue.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Gerrit. I had such high hopes for you. Maybe after you have time to chew on this, you’ll change your mind.”

  Gerrit threw his suitcase on the bed and began packing. “Don’t hold your breath. We’re finished here.”

  Kane just held his hands out as if in surrender. “Whatever happens will fall on your head. I gave you a chance.”

  “You’re asking me to betray my country. That’ll never happen in my lifetime.”

  “Be careful, Gerrit. Without me, you’ll be on your own with no connections. A very dangerous place to be.”

  “On my own has been the story of my life. I’m used to it.”