Off the Grid (A Gerrit O'Rourke Novel) (12 page)

“I’d let it alone. Better if you just do what you’re told…just like me.”

“Playing the good soldier, eh? Could get you killed in this business.”

“So could riding in a car. But we do it anyway.”

“A car only gets you and other passengers dead. This business can kill a lot more people. Particularly when you don’t know what you’re up against.”

“You have to trust the ones you’re working with.”

Stafford sneered. “What kind of world are you living in? In my business, I trust no one. That’s how I stay alive.”

Gerrit eased himself from the chair. Trust was a word he rarely used. It had been a long time since he thought of trusting anyone. The older he got, the less trust he had in people. James hit it on the head. Trust no one.

Particularly men like Richard Kane.

“I’m not an idiot,” Gerrit said. “I imagine we’ve both worked on the dark side, taking chances and doing things for God and country that others never hear about. I know the cost of doing business. We’ve both paid that price. So, let’s get about our business and trust that everything turns out all right.”

Stafford grimaced. “This is not some fairy tale, O’Rourke. People get hurt. People die. That’s just the way things are.”

Gerrit strode to the door. “At times good people die and bad people survive. It’s our job to try to even the score. Just do your job and stay out of my way. See you downstairs.”

He slammed the door behind him, knowing that he was on his own. The story of his life in a nutshell.

Vienna, Austria

S
cientists could make a gunfight sound as dry as Death Valley. Gerrit couldn’t take much more of this dribble.

It was the third day of the conference. Bored, Gerrit returned to his hotel room to find a brown leather briefcase on his bed. The afternoon sun streamed through the windows, brightening an otherwise drab day. He’d left Henry Clarke minutes ago as the scientist continued to drone on as a member of the panel, boring everyone in the room about cyber security.

Kane had reached Gerrit by phone yesterday, telling him to expect this briefcase and provided a combination to open it. The lock sprung open as he entered the last digit of the combination and pressed the release. He found a laptop and a zippered leather pouch inside. Opening the pouch, he found a key, an address to an apartment he was to visit, a small wad of latex gloves, and a cell phone.

Everything a burglar might need to commit a felony.

He pulled out the computer to examine it more closely. Kane had advised that this laptop was registered under the same alias Gerrit used to travel to Harrogate. He was to switch out his current ID with the John Gerrity documents.

Let the games begin.

The cell phone vibrated from an incoming call. Pressing the Send button, he placed the phone to his ear. Kane was on the line.

“You get everything we sent you?”

“Yeah. Just a minute ago. You watching me?”

“I like to think of it as protection. Yes, we’re watching
over
you.” Kane hesitated. “Remember, use a cab to get around. Have them drop you off several blocks away. Pay cash. Are we clear?”

“I got it. This is not my first time to the dance.”

“The next call you get will be the signal. Stay put until then and be ready to move.” Kane hung up.

Gerrit settled back to wait for the call. He closed his eyes, trying to fall asleep. With everything on his mind, he knew rest would not be an option.

Evening shadows now danced outside as Gerrit opened his eyes. He felt the cell phone inside his front pocket vibrate with an incoming call.

“Dr. O’Rourke?” A woman’s voice.

“Yes?”

Someone knocked on his door. Gerrit, phone at his ear, moved to the door.

The woman’s voice came on the line again. “Your friend from England wanted me to tell you it is time to leave.”

Before responding, he flung open the door.

A woman stood in the hallway, phone in hand. She flipped it closed and walked in without an invitation. “Dr. O’Rourke, I presume. Are you ready?”

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, 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.