Mark Young - Off the grid

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, searching 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.

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.”