Off The Grid

by Dan Kolbet

  StuTech was massive and had the resources to fund Lunsford’s programs indefinitely, but with the amount of government oversight it had to undergo every day, hiding his endeavors was more than a shell game. He had to work completely off the book and there was only so much money that could be funneled his way before raising suspicion. The agent program wasn’t even the most important one under his purview, but it was taking an enormous amount of time to cultivate.

  The report that sat in front of him detailed the laboratory set up at a medical equipment manufacturer in Tennessee that was testing a curious chemical mixture in one of its machines. The machine contained a laser that would strip away dead skin cells with a pulsing pattern. The latest model was an improvement on an old design, but featured a compound that wasn’t readily identified in the patent application. Lunsford needed to know what it was.

  It was the agent’s last report before he was fired from the equipment manufacturer.

  He had first met the agent at a diner in Illinois. Lunsford was eating a late dinner when a small man in the booth next to him, lifted the wallets of two men passing by in the span of 30 seconds. Lunsford watched as he stuffed the wallets into his Loyola University sweatshirt and went on with his meal as if nothing had happened. Intrigued by the man’s nerve, Lunsford sat down across from him. The man looked up with wide eyes when Lunsford sat down, and seemed ready to bolt.

  “Unless you want to get arrested, don’t say a word until I ask you to,” he said in a hushed tone. “Nod if you understand.”

  He nodded, still looking at the exit.

  “My guess is that those two guys are about one minute from walking back in here and fingering you for stealing their wallets. I want to help you out with that, but only if you can help me. Got it?”

  Again, he nodded.

  “I want a verbal answer on this one. Do you have an education?”

  “Huh?”

  “Not exactly the witty response I was looking for. Try again.”

  “I’m in school at Loyola, if that’s what you mean,” his voice was conversational, but understandably on edge.

  “Do you pickpocket often?”

  “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

  “Cut the bull, I know a veteran lift when I see one. Either you learned from someone who was really good or you’ve gotten a lot of practice.”

  “Dude, I’ve really got to run-“

  “If you walk out of here now, the cops that just pulled into the parking lot will be on you in no time flat.” He looked out the window at the cruiser.

  “OK fine, what do you want?”

  “What are you going to school for?” he asked.

  “What the hell man, why do you care?” he said, scoffing at him.

  “Just humor me.”

  “Nursing tech.”

  “Perfect, ever thought about medical equipment sales?”

  ***

  The Tennessee operation fell apart because of one rather large screw up. Turns out his guy didn’t follow security protocols regarding the check-in procedures of test equipment. Unfortunately, it was exactly what Lunsford had directed him to do that got him fired. He was to disassemble a particular device, replace the core element with one provided by StuTech and then return it hours before federal regulators were to see it in action.

  He missed the deadline for returning the equipment to the locked cage where it was monitored by radio frequency identification or RFID tags, which set off alarm bells. He was let go, but not before he’d completed his assignment, or so he claimed. The company missed the preliminary testing deadline and would have to re-file their application, a delay that would take months.

  Replacing the component in the equipment wasn’t the ultimate goal of this particular placement, but it was a step in the right direction. Yet ending the placement without completion meant starting from scratch, which simply wasn’t possible. Losing a valuable agent in the process just piled on more work that couldn’t get covered.

  The agent got his student loans paid off out of the deal and some rather advanced training on how to make friends and influence people. He arranged for the agent to get his last payment in cash, minus the final installation for failing to ultimately complete his assignment. He wouldn’t be happy, but that was the agreement he’d made when he signed on. Lunsford was already in the process of relocating the man. With too many questionable moves on his resume and now a termination, he was essentially unemployable by any relevant firms. Lunsford knew he could use his talents, but it would have to be outside the scope of medical work.

  He set the report down and wondered if his other agents were making any progress at all that might get them out of their slump. Now that he was down an agent, he’d have to exert a little more pressure on the rest.

  Chapter 13

  Seattle, Washington

  Luke stepped off the train in downtown Seattle amid a throng of rabid Major League Soccer fans. It was game day and the hometown team was in the hunt for the playoffs. More than 40,000 people filled the streets near the stadium and lined up to show their tickets for entry. It was Fourth of July weekend and the game was sold out. He’d purchased his ticket the week earlier and made it known to his MassEnergy co-workers that he was going to catch a game and meet up with some old friends over the holiday weekend. The doldrums in the Orange pod hadn’t subsided one bit. It was the same repetitive work, day after day. He was very much looking forward to a day off.

  The warm summer sun beat down on the asphalt and seemed to radiate up, blasting everything in its path. Blending into the crowd wasn’t difficult, given all the team jerseys and young athletic men of similar build. Yet he didn’t notice the man watching him from the next train car all the way from Portland, who was now 10 spots behind him in line for the game. Luke carried a black messenger bag over his shoulder and showed it to the security guards at the gate. They scanned his ticket and he entered the stadium.

  He had no reason to believe that he was being followed, but Lunsford had drilled into him that there were far more serious consequences to being tailed than there were inconveniences to simply covering your tail. Given his destination, he opted to be cautious. Lunsford’s training might actually come in handy.

  Inside the concourse, there was a line for the first men’s restroom, no doubt drunken fans relieving themselves from early afternoon tailgating. He took an escalator to the second level and stood in a hot dog concessions line. From the line he got a good view of people milling about the concourse. Nobody stood out to him. After moving up several spots in line, he left his place and ducked into the nearest bathroom. Once inside a stall, he removed his green team jersey and replaced it with a black T-Shirt and put on a baseball cap. He turned his bag inside out and affixed a second shoulder strap to the hooks he had attached to the inside, effectively turning the black messenger bag to a brown backpack.

  He looked at the time. Seven minutes until the game started. Perfect. They were just finishing up the National Anthem. Pulling the bag over his shoulders, he left the bathroom, quickly glancing in either direction for familiar faces. No fan wanted to miss opening minutes, so the crowd surging through the concourse toward their seats was now at its peak. He cut through the masses and quickly walked to the other side of the stadium on the second level, then back down a maintenance stairwell to the ground floor.

  Picking up the pace as much as he could without drawing the attention of security, he headed toward the bank of exit gates.

  “Sir, there is no re-entry if you exit these gates,” a security guard said as he blew past him.

  “No worries,” Luke said without stopping, “I’m not coming back. My wife called, she’s having the baby!”

  The security guard gave him a big grin as Luke ran to the front of the line of cabs still dropping off fans at the opposite end of where he’d entered the stadium. He opened the rear door of a yellow sedan for a couple just arriving and then jumped in the cab once they walked away.

  “W
here to?” the cabbie asked, surprised to get a fare so quickly.

  Luke handed him a wad of cash.

  “Toward downtown.”

  ***

  The man on Luke’s tail jogged up to the exit gates inside the stadium and watched as Luke’s cab rounded the corner out of sight. He had caught sight of Luke back on the second level concourse. Luke was the only person who had been moving away from the field, otherwise he wouldn’t have recognized the change of clothes. The man had mistakenly gone left, instead of right at the bottom of the maintenance staircase and lost Luke’s trail.

  The man pulled out his phone and dialed Steve Lunsford.

  “Your boy gave me the slip. Pretty good moves too,” he said. “You were wrong, he did learn a few things from you, old man.”

  “Losing you probably wasn’t all that hard, don’t give him too much credit. And enough with the ‘old man’ stuff already. You were a soldier too, show me some respect.”

  “You got it pops. What do you want me to do now?”

  “See if you can pick up his scent at any of his old hangouts, but don’t be too obvious. If he went though the trouble of losing you, I’ve got a pretty good idea where he’s headed.”

  Chapter 14

  Luke hadn’t seen Rachel in more than 15 months and he’d been planning this since March. They’d arranged to meet at a boutique hotel downtown. The fact that he was sneaking around just to see his fiancée, was utterly ridiculous. But Lunsford was adamant that he was to stay away from Rachel for the duration of his time at Millennium Optics and MassEnergy. He hadn’t wavered from the agreement until today.

  “You never know what those people are doing, watching you,” he said. “They don’t know you. They don’t trust you. You were sleeping with the enemy just a few months ago for God’s sake.”

  So, he followed Lunsford’s rules, for the most part.

  Rachel had rented the room and left a key for him at the front desk under the name Blaine Kirkhorn, one of Luke’s favorite professors at Stanford. It grossed him out that he was about to secretly rendezvous with “old professor” in a hotel room, but that wasn’t on his mind as he walked down the hallway and reached the door to the hotel room.

  The two had made contact just twice since their supposed break-up. Luke had sent her a letter, thanking her for forwarding a letter from Gina, which itself had been forwarded from Luke’s old apartment to Rachel’s condo then eventually down to him in California. If Rachel had not sent Gina’s letter down to Luke, he would never have met his niece. The mail was infuriatingly slow, but Lunsford had once said it was the most secure form of communications, so that’s what they used.

  Luke’s letter briefly described his activities at Millennium Optics and told Rachel about Tilly and Gina in Mill Creek. He didn’t want to go into too much detail, but he also didn’t want to leave anything out. He also told her that no matter what, he was planning to be in Seattle the following Fourth of July and that she should stay in town.

  In just the past week Luke had sent her a private message through a dummy account on a social networking site – as Blaine Kirkhorn – with instructions for where and when to meet.

  All these hoops, just to be together for a few hours. He would have done much more if he needed to. He had longed to see her since the day he left, cursing himself for being so stupid for practically throwing away his perfect relationship with a great girl to progress his career further inside StuTech.

  Would she want to stay with him after he abandoned her for so long? There was only one way to find out. He inserted his key into the door, waited for the green light to appear and stepped in.

  ***

  Warren Evans, dressed in a dark black Armani suit and green tie, sat in a high back chair facing the door.

  “I thought you’d never come,” he said.

  Luke scanned the room. No sign of Rachel. His stomach sank and his mouth went dry. He felt like a toddler caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Something wasn’t right. He removed his backpack, but held onto it next to his side. Evans’ eyes never left him.

  “Have a seat,” Evans said, motioning him toward the desk.

  The room was dark except for a bright lamp behind Evans. It gave him an eerie silhouette that Luke had to squint through to see him. It was obviously an intentional move. Evans wanted Luke off guard.

  Luke slowly walked over to the only other chair in the room and sat down. The two had only formally met once before at a Thanksgiving dinner two years earlier. The man had offered a rare invitation to Rachel to have the meal at his estate. She was hesitant to attend, but the draw of her father making an effort at a relationship was too hard to resist. She brought along Luke to help buffer the icy relationship between father and daughter. Luke had sat mostly silent as the pair chatted about inconsequential business subjects and ignored him entirely. It was fascinating how such a brilliant man couldn’t hold a polite conversation with his own flesh and blood. But then again, he had nothing to gain from his daughter, so why bother?

  Time had not been kind to Evans, who seemed to have aged a great deal in the last few years. His eyes were alert, but sunken in their sockets. The loose skin of his neck draped his white shirt collar as he spoke.

  “I’m sure you want to know why I’m here and not my daughter. Well, let’s get that out of the way first, shall we?”

  He took great pains to cross one leg over the other before continuing.

  “Quite simply, she’s moved on.”

  “What do you mean? She rented the room,” Luke said, fumbling to get the words out. “She was going to meet me here-”

  “No, she wasn’t. She never got your letter – cute, by the way, all that stuff about your niece. And she never agreed to meet you. It’s time that you face facts, son. You don’t belong in this world of ours. People like you and her aren’t supposed to be together. She’s realized that and moved on.”

  Luke tried to take stock of his emotions before blurting out what a bastard Evans was to say such lies.

  “So, you prevented her from coming here today.”

  “No, she has had every opportunity to see you, and chose not to. Otherwise, she’d be here right now, don’t you think?”

  His mind was spinning, but it all made sense. She could have contacted him anytime. A call. A text. She could have told him she wasn’t coming. They had agreed to meet on this weekend. Hadn’t they?

  Luke thought that she understood why he took the job. Why he left.

  Then it finally dawned on him.

  “You set me up.”

  “Well now, look whose head is finally in the game,” Evans said with a smirk. “Thanks for joining the party.”

  Luke knew he wasn’t a rising star at StuTech. He’d repeatedly applied to work in Advanced Analytics, the area of the company that knew the details and refined the process that actually made wireless work. He submitted plans that he thought would interest the team. Mathematical models and formulas that would extend the reach of wireless - maybe even enough to reach Mill Creek. But his application was denied each and every time. When Lunsford’s offer came in to branch out and work at MassEnergy, he snatched it up, hoping it would further his efforts to get into Advanced Analytics. Apparently he’d been dead wrong.

  “So, spying on MassEnergy’s projects, that was all bull?” he asked.

  “Not at all. We still need that information and you’re the right kid to do it too. Smart enough to get in the door and uncover the dirt. Unfortunately it’s your ambition that has blinded you. What sort of well-respected girl wants her future mate to go radio-silent for months, even years at a time? A faux break-up? How can you put a girl through that? Come on. You saw the brass ring and couldn’t grab it fast enough. A paltry raise and new job is dangled in front of you and you were hooked.”

  Evans crossed his legs again, using his hands to lift his left over his right.

  “A girl like Rachel has had money-chasing boys like you following her around like a little lost puppy h
er whole life. I feel somewhat sorry for her about that. You showed your true colors son, and went for the cash at first sight.”

  Luke took the opportunity to get deeper into StuTech. The cash was just a bonus. He also wanted to show himself worthy of Rachel and be his own man when they got married.

  “I took the job to show her I could make something of myself and show you I could deliver for the company. What you’re saying is twisting around what I did.”

  “Like I said, those are the facts. I’ve never been able to tell that girl what to do and she’s made her decision.”

  “I think I should hear this from her, not you.”

  “Not going to happen. And good luck tracking her down too. She wasn’t waiting around for her dime-store boyfriend to make his valiant return. She’s out of the country, been gone quite some time now. Some humanitarian mission in a jungle I think.”

  Rachel had always talked about going to third-world countries to help destitute villages receive medical services and vaccines. She wrote her master’s thesis on the subject. No surprise her father didn’t know about it.

  “So you’re firing me?”

  “Not exactly,” Evans said.

  “Then I quit,” Luke said, standing up.

  “Not so fast. You haven’t told me where the body is.”

  “Come again?”

  “I did some digging on you. Any father in my position would. Do you really think I’d allow her to marry a murderer? You’re not going anywhere.”

  Luke always wondered when that night 10 years earlier would come back to haunt him. But this wasn’t what he’d pictured.

  “I can still use you,” Evans said. “And unless you want the California State Police to get a rather detailed tip about what happened to your sister’s neighbor, you’re going to do exactly what I say.”