Off the Grid (A Gerrit O'Rourke Novel)

by Young, Mark

  He turned to the others. “Stay here. I need to check something out.” Alena started to say something, but Gerrit interrupted her. “Need you to cover Willy. If something happens, just call that number I gave you and tell them to come on in. We need to get Willy inside that building at any cost. Stay in contact over the radio. If any patrols come my way, give me a yell. Okay?”

  “Hey, Mr. G. I scanned radio frequencies when those two clowns walked by. Came up with the frequency they’re using tonight. I fed it into our radios, and we can intercept their calls. It will default back to your communication channel unless they’re speaking. Then we can listen in unless you want to override them and communicate with us.

  “Sweet, Willy. Thanks. Okay, stay put till I get back.”

  They nodded.

  Gripping his rifle, Gerrit headed toward the landing site. He had to make sure about one thing before they made a move toward the building.

  Chapter 62

  An open meadow lay between Gerrit and a slab of black asphalt where their backup needed to land. Nowhere to hide. Nowhere to run. If Kane’s men caught sight of him here, it was all over.

  He sank to the ground and crawled the remaining distance to break up his silhouette. As if to help, dark clouds drifted in front of the moon, cutting visibility to a minimum.

  As he drew closer to the landing pad, Gerrit suddenly heard raised voices on the radio.

  “Abandoned cruiser just beached about a click away.” A caller’s transmissions ended with coordinates that only made sense to Kane’s security team.

  They found our boat. Search teams would start looking along the shoreline while security tightens. Time was running out.

  Gerrit continued to snake his way forward while mentally trying to put himself in Kane’s shoes. What would I do if I suspected an assault? Keep security close to the base of operations and make sure the landing site was covered. So far, nothing like that had been set up. It could only mean one thing.

  The heliport was a trap.

  He drew near the landing pad and inched forward, feeling just above the ground. There. His hand brushed a taut wire stretched parallel to the ground.

  Trip wire.

  Carefully, he felt along the wire until he reached what he feared. A trigger for a claymore mine. He felt with his fingertips until he located the safety. He flicked it off to prevent an electrical charge from reaching the blasting cap. He crept along the trip wire until he reached the claymore mine, gingerly removing the blasting cap and primer from the detonation well.

  Salty beads of sweat stung his eyes as he finished disarming it. First claymore defused. One down. How many more to go?

  There must be others.

  He studied the position of the claymore and its potential killing radius across the helipad. Picturing where he would place other claymores, he worked along the edge of the asphalt until he came to another wire. Carefully, he disarmed this mine before searching for the next.

  Almost an hour later, he defused four claymores set in a crisscross pattern. Whoever laid these mines also expanded the kill zone to include the cleared brush to the left and right where a chopper might set down. They had planned to kill anyone emerging from the craft, including the flight crew still inside. Once the claymores crippled the chopper, they probably planned to use a tractor to yank the disabled craft from the site to make way for their own inbound helicopters.

  He activated his mike. “Alena. Use that phone number I gave you and tell our people to start coming. Make sure you use my name. They have two birds. One will soften the perimeter up while the second will come in behind to drop reinforcements. Make sure they have the latest coordinates of each patrol team out there. They must either wipe them out or force them to seek cover until our guys are on the ground.”

  “Understood.”

  “And Alena…”

  Another transmission click let him know she heard him.

  “Relay that four claymores have been deactivated. Make sure they know we’re going to hit the main building the second they reach our location. They have to keep the others off our backs as soon as they touch ground. Got it?”

  Two clicks gave him the answer.

  “Good. When you get that message off, both of you move up to my position. And stay low.”

  He covered the face of his watch and turned on the light: 10 p.m. Five minutes later, he saw Alena and Willy moving toward him. He waited until they drew near. “Okay, let’s start toward the building. I want to be able to move the moment our backup gets here.”

  He started out and the others followed in single file.

  They crawled about ten feet when floodlights came on. The harsh light bathed the open field like a football stadium on game night. They lay there naked to the world.

  Someone must have spotted them.

  He sprang from the ground. “Alena. Willy. Run for it. Now!”

  The elevator door opened and Richard Kane strode toward the security console. “Give me an update.”

  The Hulk glanced up, blinking twice. “Someone just triggered the laser beams to the landing site.”

  “I gave strict orders for our people to stay away from there. We have it set up for any incoming visitors.”

  Nodding, the Hulk seemed to shrink in his chair. “I know, sir. I believe we’ve got combatants inside our security compound. Look!” He pointed to the color monitor directly overhead.

  Richard glanced up and saw three figures darting across the open field. “Zoom in. I want to see their faces.”

  Feverishly, the Hulk pounded on the keys until the camera swooped in. For just a second, Richard saw the side view of Gerrit as he flashed by. Then the images disappeared.

  Richard whirled around. “They got to the building. Lock us down. Now!”

  An alarm sounded, harsh beeps pulsating through the building. Richard scurried toward the elevator. “I will be down on the lower level. Keep me posted.”

  Gerrit pressed his back against the side of the building. Alena and Willy crouched next to him. They tried to catch their breath, listening for any sounds coming their way.

  Nothing.

  “Cover me.” Gerrit pushed off the wall. He peeled away and zigzagged a path to the front steps. Large flagstone steps led to the front door. Seeing a camera above the door, he used the butt of his rifle to smash the lens, although they must have already spotted him.

  He lowered his backpack and pulled out a det cord and packed it around the door, letting out the line to the detonator. Gerrit grabbed his pack and retraced his steps down the stone entryway until he stood next to Alena and Willy, dragging the line with him. They stood, shielded from the recessed door.

  “Cover your ears,” he hissed, a moment before setting off the blast. As smoke settled, Gerrit leaned out to see the damage. The blast punched a hole in the entryway, the door flung inward to allow easy access, one hinge still stubbornly holding it up.

  “Willy, let Alena and me do a quick sweep, then you follow.”

  “Copy, Mr. G. The cavalry’s ten minutes away.”

  “Tell them we need them now! We just hit the building and Kane’s security must be moving our way.”

  Ten minutes seemed ten hours right now. Patrol units would be converging here within minutes. They did not have that long to survive.

  Chapter 63

  30,000 Feet above Boise, Idaho

  Beck looked up just as Jack came into the cabin area. “Bad news?”

  Thompson’s normally unreadable face wrinkled with concern. The colonel flung himself into the seat across from Beck. “Just got a message from our guys. Choppers took off about five minutes ago and the unit commander just got another message from Willy.”

  Beck said nothing, waiting for Thompson to continue.

  “They’ve been spotted. Gerrit cleared the landing site of claymores, but they set off an alarm system as they were moving toward the lab. Says they need help now. Not sure they can hold out.”

  “Anyway backup can get ther
e quicker?”

  Thompson shook his head. “They’re already slamming pedal to the metal. They can’t go any faster.”

  Beck leaned on the arm of his chair, chin resting on a tightly clenched fist. “They can’t hold Kane off for that long.”

  Thompson nodded. “Willy hasn’t been able to break into Kane’s system yet.”

  “Can Willy tell what might be happening once he breaks in?”

  “The only good news so far. He reports that he should be able to verify that what we started in Albuquerque is piggybacking on Kane’s transmissions. The Trojan horse we sent in should be going to work on Project Megiddo right now.”

  “So what Gerrit and Alena are doing at the moment may be all for nothing.”

  Glumly, Thompson leaned back in his chair. “Everything they do now may be just a big smoke screen, one last attempt to save Joe. We still don’t know where Kane’s main servers are stored. My people—once they get there—have orders to blow the place.”

  “No updates on Joe?”

  “Nothing. Don’t even know if he’s there, let alone whether he’s alive.”

  “I say again—is this sacrifice they’re making for nothing?” Beck seemed to express how both men felt.

  The colonel nodded. “Not exactly. Primary mission has been accomplished. They breached Project Megiddo in New Mexico. Gerrit knew what the cost might be going in. We still had to send them in. Even if Joe wasn’t there. We had to make it look good.”

  “Well, it looks like they did a bang-up job. Kane’s sending everything he has to take them out. We’ve got him fooled.”

  Both men looked out the passenger window. Below, dots of light lay across the high desert as they flew over Idaho’s capital city. Beck stared out into the blackness, feeling helpless as he thought of what Gerrit, Willy, and Alena faced. Sometimes he wished he were God. But that would be stupid. Beck had enough problems dealing with the troubles of this investigation, let alone carrying the burdens of the world.

  In his own investigation, he learned to respect what Gerrit’s father had tried to achieve. First, Thomas O’Rourke tried to shoulder the whole load after learning how his research would be used by Kane and his people. The father tried to protect his son by trying to bring him back to MIT where he could be protected.

  Instead, Gerrit went off to war, unaware of what his own father was struggling with back home, angry that he couldn’t make his father understand. Unknown to Gerrit, his father knew quite well what was at stake. Like some international thriller, Thomas O’Rourke struggled against a growing technological invasion that threatened the entire international community. Ironically, it was the father’s death that brought his son home. And then Gerrit struggled to find out why his father died, not knowing his ignorance was the only thing keeping him alive.

  Beck hoped Gerrit lived long enough to learn what his father had sacrificed.

  This thought took him to a night many years ago when Joe told him he’d recruited Alena to be a part of the team. At first, Beck told Joe he was crazy. They knew what she had done in her past and he thought the risk too great. Joe fought him every step of the way, even though he knew what the woman had brought on Joe’s own family.

  “People change. Redemption is always possible if a person is willing to confess his or her sins and make amends.” That was all Joe would say.

  It looked like Joe might have been right about her. Maybe. And Beck hoped Gerrit would still be able to work with Alena once he knew the entire story about his father and that night many years ago.

  Gerrit would handle it one of two ways. He’d learn to work with her and put the past behind him.

  Or he’d kill her.

  This whole conflict might be moot if Gerrit and Alena didn’t survive tonight. Help was still minutes away.

  He prayed they lasted that long.

  Gerrit pulled the pin and rolled a flash-bang into the darkened lobby. Lights inside the building had gone dark the moment he blew the door. They must be waiting inside.

  He wanted to even their chances of survival. He counted off the seconds before the explosion. As soon as it went off, he peeled around the doorway and entered the lobby to the left. Alena swept past him toward the right. Once again, he and Alena had to pass through the kill zone.

  Red emergency lights flashed on. He quickly scanned the lobby. No movement.

  “Gerrit, follow me! Tell Willy to stay right behind us.” Alena’s sharp command caught him unaware for a moment. She brushed past him and, using her M4 rifle, blew the lock off a door leading from the lobby. “Forget the elevator. It’s no use.”

  Gerrit scanned the lobby once more. Empty. Where was everyone? This place had to have a small army working inside.

  She kicked the door open and rolled another flash-bang down a bank of stairs. They turned away from the blast, standing on either side of the doorway, until it triggered below. After the explosion, Alena dashed down the stairs with speed Gerrit thought bordered on recklessness. He quickly tried to catch up, knowing that there had to be more security below.

  A pulsating red glow illuminated the stairs in the same way the lobby had been lit up. Somewhere, a lockdown system had kicked in, triggering emergency lights and automatically locking all passageways through the building.

  She moved through the building like someone who’d been here before. How did she know the door above led to these stairs? There were no markings in the lobby.

  A chill began to work its way through his chest. Unless…? What were the chances Richard Kane had two traitors in their midst? Gerrit had watched her in action, and he found it hard to believe she worked for the other side. She had been genuinely shocked to find Redneck had been a plant. The look on her face was as if Redneck had betrayed her—personally—not just the group she worked with.

  He forced these thoughts from his mind. Needed to concentrate on finding Joe and getting out of this building alive. Later, when they had time, he’d confront her.

  Gerrit motioned for Willy to rejoin them. “Move ahead of me, but stay behind Alena. I’ll cover our six, make sure no one climbs down our back.”

  Nodding, Willy moved ahead, trying to stay up with Alena.

  The stairway snaked back and forth, carrying them deeper belowground. He’d lost track of how many flights of stairs they traversed. Four or five? The last landing led to a concrete slab, bordered by a wall of cement. A single metal door stood at the foot of the stairs. Off to the left, a keypad.

  He moved closer to Alena. “The only way we can get through that door is to blow it with the det cord I have left.” He heard a backup generator pounding away nearby, and the keypad lit up.

  Alena looked at him earnestly. “Gerrit, do you trust me?”

  The thought that troubled him earlier came back in a flash. He paused for a moment, thinking hard about his answer. “Yeah. I do.”

  “I’ll tell you everything later. Right now, just trust me to do the right thing.” She strode over to the keypad and punched in a series of letters and numbers. The lock clicked and she opened the door, then held it open. “Stay close.” She peeled through the doorway to the right, and Gerrit moved to the left, leaving Willy behind.

  At first, the place seemed empty.

  They stared at each other and then scanned the room once more. A cluster of consoles and monitors, grouped together at one end of an expansive room, stood next to a forest of tall computer servers. Each workstation was linked to a series of cables that rose to the ceiling, strung together like strands of spaghetti until they reached the servers. The cables came to a glass wall, through which they passed into what appeared to be a climate-controlled and dust-free environment.

  Kane’s nerve center.

  The workstations looked like a duplication of NASA’s control center, everyone’s desk facing the mammoth screens like so many pagans worshiping their god. On these screens, streams of data code and file directories were broadcast. In the far corner, a half-dozen men and women cowered, their white lab
coats broadcasting that they were technicians—not soldiers.

  Willy came in behind them and whistled. “Oh my! What do we have here?”

  Gerrit moved toward the huddled technicians, ordering them to lie on the ground. He found a box of plastic ties and used these to bind up the technicians. Within minutes, he had the group bound hand and foot.

  Willy was already at one of the consoles, his laptop tied to a USB port. “I can get a signal down here. They must have a wireless system set up to reach upstairs. I am going to start sending out data from their system to ours.” Willy glanced at one of the screens. “Uh-oh.”

  “What?” Gerrit moved closer. “It looks like they’ve accessed NSA, Langley…and the Pentagon.”

  He and Willy watched a stream of data flow across the screen, files created in directories clearly marked. He saw the names of countries, with subdirectories identified by public and private entities.

  Willy quickly zoomed on to the main directory listed as United States, and an array of subdirectories formed into two categories, public and private. After clicking on Public, Willy scanned down the list until he reached Intelligence Agencies. Clicking on the one for NSA, files began to pop up by division, listing organizational structure and personnel.

  Willy chose one file identified as NSA’s Central Security Services (CSS) and clicked on the personnel file. A page opened, listing the names of executives in that branch. Some names were in red and others in black. As more data streamed in, some of the names switched from black to red as they viewed the list.

  Gerrit pointed. “Click on that one listed as Director, NSA/Chief CSS in red.”

  Willy complied, and the screen flashed color as hundreds of source documents started to open. Gerrit stared at the screen and recognized the director’s face, a brigadier general from the Unites States Air Force.

  “Oh, man.” Willy clicked on a file where video and voice files seemed to have been merged. “Look at this, Gerrit.”