Mark Young - Off the grid

They settled in as the jet began a circuitous trip across the county, bound for the United Kingdom. Jack would be dropped off at a major airport in Virginia before they headed out over the Atlantic. The group remained quiet and subdued, Alena and Willy finally succumbing to fatigue. Gerrit could not seem to fall asleep. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Redneck’s angry face.

Jack, sprawled in the seat across the narrow aisle, leaned toward him. “Hey, you still awake?”

Gerrit opened his eyes. “Can’t sleep, sir.” Behind him, Willy began to snore and Alena seemed restless as she slumbered. “Redneck still bugs me. How did he slip through?”

“Been chewing that over myself. Kane must have recruited him as a plant years ago. I’m just surprised it took this long for that traitor to show his true colors.”

Gerrit nodded. “We have to rethink everything. He knows all our safe houses, all our secrets. He knows where Joe and Willy do business in Virginia.”

“That’s my first stop after you guys drop me off. Check out their place and clean it out of anything of importance.”

“We need to get set up with new identities, new lives, after…”

Jack seemed to read his mind. “Just focus on the mission. Joe will either survive or not. You know the odds.”

Gerrit shook his head. They were probably going to rescue a dead man. Richard would already have a trap set. “It seems almost pointless. But we have to know. We have to get in there and make sure.”

The colonel looked over at him. “Got a plan in mind?”

Gerrit closed his eyes again. “Got one that keeps coming to mind, Colonel. But I don’t like the odds.”

“The contact there will give you all the support he can. And I’ll start working on the electronic coverage you need. You should have an eye in the sky and a few drone flyovers if you need it. But the ground troops-that’s going to be hard to come by. Unless your contact can pull a rabbit out of the hat.”

He felt the back of his chair move. Alena pulled herself up, leaning over the seat. “Colonel, Joe has to be alive. He just has to be.”

Gerrit turned and saw her face flushed with anger. “We’ll do our best.”

“We’ll do better than that,” she said. “We are going to bring him home.”

Jack raised himself. “I’m going to check in with the pilot. I’ll be back later.”

When he left, Alena slid into the seat next to Gerrit. “How are we going to do this, Gerrit? Get inside Kane’s place?”

He looked at her. “I’ve got an idea, but I need to talk to our contact before we go any further. Need to know what kind of resources we’re working with on the ground.”

She rubbed her eyes, a weary expression on her face. “I feel if Redneck betrayed us, that anyone…” She stopped and shook her head.

“We have to stick together. Those of us who are left. And we have to trust each other. No matter what.”

She glared at him. “Trust is a hard thing to come by where I am from. Has to be earned. I thought we could trust Redneck, but he turned on us. Makes me wonder about the rest of us.”

“Makes you wonder about me?” He searched her eyes, looking for whatever she was trying to hide.

“No. I’ve seen what Kane took from you. Of all of us, you’ve lost the most.”

“And what have you lost, Alena?”

She turned away, looking out the window at the sun slowly rising in the east. “It is not what I have lost. It is what I have gained.”

“I don’t understand.”

She slowly faced him. “Joe found me. Trusted me when no one else would. He took me in and gave me hope for a better life. He gave me…family. And now, someone in my family has betrayed us.”

He reached across the aisle, clasping her hand. “Tell me how he saved you. From what?”

Her eyes hardened, and she moved farther away. “Ask Joe…when we find him.”

Gerrit settled back, trying to get some rest, but his mind just wouldn’t relax. Different scenarios played out in his head as he tried to figure the best approach to Kane’s mansion. Unless they had reinforcements, he did not like the odds.

As he created and studied each scenario, one phrase kept coming to mind.

Suicide mission.

Richard Kane had already put the order out. He knew they were coming. It was just a matter of time. Quickly, he called in those he trusted and laid out the welcoming party he had in mind. If everything worked out, in less than twenty-four hours Gerrit and the others would be his prisoners-or they would be dead.

Either way, I win.

Richard slammed his desk drawer closed and locked it after the meeting, anxiously waiting to hear the final damage reports from Albuquerque. He wanted a firsthand account from Collette before deciding what action he would take. Whatever he decided, he knew she would not be pleased.

Failure was not an option-for her or him. Trouble always flowed downhill when plans went awry. He did not expect leniency from those in power above him, and he certainly was not inclined to give it to his subordinates when they failed.

Albuquerque was a colossal failure. It jeopardized everything they’d been striving to achieve with Project Megiddo and other efforts. This project was just one of many parts to a complicated machine, like one battle in a major war with many fronts. Project Megiddo needed to function so other parts of the machine could move forward.

He only hoped that Gerrit did not get to tamper with what the New Mexico lab had stored. There was only one other facility that retained these developments. They always tried to duplicate their research, so if one facet of the program became exposed, other parts would still function.

If Gerrit’s band of troublemakers found out about the other site, Stuart and the others would finish Richard off for good. There was only one weak link. One person whom Gerrit might begin to suspect. Hopefully, he would not put it together until it was too late. After that last phone call with Stuart, Richard knew he was on borrowed time. He must make the most of it.

At least Richard had the brains of the outfit. O’Rourke was in his custody. He rose and strode toward the door.

Time to set a trap.

Atlantic Ocean, 100 miles from the Irish Coast

Willy Williams sat up and opened his laptop. The aircraft jostled him awake a few minutes earlier and he could not get back to sleep. He saw Alena dozing off again, and Gerrit sat by himself, scratching out ideas on a notepad.

Almost idly, he began to replay a record of all transmissions he’d recorded when they hit the Albuquerque lab. He studied all outgoing traffic from a server located at the lab. One IP address kept popping up every hour at the same time. He isolated the address and ran a history on this site. A pattern soon emerged that must be an automatic transmission generating from the Millennium Technologies lab to the unknown IP address, as if it was a backup system. But the backup site was not linked to any known off-site storage site-either commercially or privately run.

He copied the IP address, then pasted it into a search program he and Joe used as a locator. They used this program when they came across websites that tried to hide their location of service, sending queries like Willy’s colliding into dead ends all over the planet. It would take time for Willy’s system to connect to where he and Joe kept these master programs. He would receive an e-mail when the site had traced and identified this unknown IP address. Until then, he would study other data collected from the Albuquerque operation.

He tried not to think about Redneck. Shock over his friend’s betrayal still left Willy numb. They always butted heads, but he thought he and Redneck shared a common bond, a common understanding. His mind began dwelling on other concerns, the main one being Joe O’Rourke. Was his friend dead or alive? He shook that thought from his mind, choosing to focus on whether Mr. G’s rescue plan might work.