Off The Grid

by Dan Kolbet

  Rachel leaned down and kissed him on the forehead.

  “Hi,” was all he managed to say. His throat was so dry no sound came out.

  “Don’t talk, just rest. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

  Luke closed his eyes and didn’t wake up for another eight hours.

  ***

  It felt like a weight had been lifted to Rachel. Things could finally get back the way they were. Luke could come back with her to StuTech. Or he could do something else. She didn’t care. They could finally get married and have a normal life. Things were looking up.

  She had relaxed a bit since she knew Luke was resting and that he knew she was there waiting for him. He’d be awake soon enough. She sipped her coffee as she finished working on her fourth crossword puzzle book. It was the last one the hospital gift shop had. She was afraid she’d have to switch to that infuriating game Sudoku. She just couldn’t sit idle in his room.

  A nurse came in and checked his vital signs.

  “The doctor wants him up now. If he isn’t awake, I’ll have to give him some wake-up juice to get him up and running,” she said. “You don’t want that. Maybe you can give him a little prodding, so we don’t have to?”

  Rachel sat down on the bed and put her hand on his chest. She’d always liked to feel his heartbeat at night after they made love. The rhythm helped her go to sleep.

  “Luke, honey, it’s time to wake up,” she said softly, as she gently rubbed his chest.

  He blinked his eyes open and tried to clear his throat.

  “Here, drink this,” Rachel repositioned the head of the bed and helped him take a sip of water. He drained the cup and looked around the room.

  He wanted to ask her why she was there in the hospital with him. Hadn’t she dumped him and left the country? Wasn’t it over between them? But he knew those questions would have to wait.

  “Where’s my backpack?” he said in a rough voice.

  “What?”

  “My backpack. It was in the car.”

  “That doesn’t matter now, you need to rest.”

  “No. I need my backpack, there was something very valuable in it.”

  His voice was getting stronger as he became fully awake.

  “What could be so important that you need it in the hospital?”

  “I can’t exactly say. Well, I’m not sure,” Luke wasn’t sure what Rachel knew about the StuTech’s proprietary materials or what lies her father might have told her about him. Could it be that he didn’t trust her anymore?

  “What day is it?” he asked.

  “You’ve been in the hospital for almost four days,” she said.

  “Did they bring my things here?”

  “No one brought you anything,” Rachel said. “It’s just been you and me here at the hospital. Your clothes are in the cabinet. That’s it.”

  “No one else came?”

  “Expecting your girlfriend?” She couldn’t help herself, it just came out.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing. Never mind.”

  Rachel regretted saying it. This wasn’t the time.

  “If I don’t get that backpack back, well, that’s not good.”

  “It’s that important?” She looked into his eyes, searching for a reason.

  “Yes it is.”

  “The doctors aren’t going to release you.”

  Luke sat up on the bed. A wave of lightheadedness washed over him, but it quickly passed. He swung his legs over the side of the bed.

  “I’m OK, just a little sore, that’s all.”

  “And you got a concussion, 12 stitches in your face and broke your arm. So, you’re right. No big deal. How about we go for a little five-mile jog? Feeling up for that?”

  “Not quite.”

  “Didn’t think so.”

  “If I can prove to you that I’m OK, will you help me?”

  “If I don’t help you, you’re going to do it anyway aren’t you?”

  “Probably.”

  “Then I guess I’ll help, but you need to tell me what we’re doing.”

  “OK, first we need to find my rental car.”

  ***

  The car was at a service center a few minutes outside of town. After several phone calls to local towing services, Rachel had found the company that hauled the rental car away. While she tried to locate the car, Luke gingerly got dressed. Luckily the clothes he wore during the accident escaped nearly unscathed. Just a few bloodstains.

  Knowing the doctors would not allow him to be discharged from the hospital, they simply walked out without calling any attention to themselves. He was still weak and pale, but determined to leave. He’d have to fill out their paperwork some other time.

  At the towing company counter Rachel talked their way past the manager and his six-foot high perimeter fence to gain access to the car.

  Luke tried to hide his sweating. He was dizzy when they finally got to the car. He was astonished at the damage. His injuries seemed inconsequential compared to skeletal remains of the car. He was lucky to be alive and he knew it.

  Luke couldn’t help but be reminded of his parents’ deaths. He felt a wave of guilt for surviving not one, but two car crashes with just minor injuries. The rental car was in much worse shape than his parents’ old sedan had been. The windows were shattered and peeling away from the damaged frame. The rear passenger side door was caved in from the impact with the tree. The trunk was the only area of the car still intact.

  The backpack was supposed to be on the front seat. They searched the inside of the car as best they could given the extent of the damage. It was gone. Luke had been worried that thieves might have stolen it, but his suitcase was still in the trunk, so that was out.

  “I should have thought about this – it must have been ejected from one of the broken windows as the car rolled,” he said, bracing himself against the hood of the car. “We’ve got to get to the crash scene to find it.”

  “Luke it’s not here and you’re in no condition to go hiking around the side of the road – let alone the cliffs overlooking the river where you crashed,” Rachel said. “It’s getting dark. Let’s get back to the hospital and we can look in the morning.”

  “There’s no harm in looking now. It’s not that far from here.”

  “If the backpack is anywhere in the open, its probably been picked up by someone by now anyway. The only way we’ll find it is if it’s hidden in the overgrowth. That can wait till morning.”

  Luke looked reluctant, but knew she was right.

  “OK, but we’re not going back to the hospital.”

  Chapter 51

  The knock on the Luke’s apartment door was so light that Rachel wasn’t sure she heard it. She went to the peephole in the door, expecting to see nothing, but standing in the dimly lit hallway was a pleasant-looking olive-skinned man fiddling with the cuffs of his light jacket. Luke was asleep on the Murphy bed of the studio apartment and she hated to wake him, so she opened the door using the chain and quietly asked what the man wanted.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, I thought this was Luke Kincaid’s apartment,” Amir Ghorbani said. “I must have gotten the wrong door.”

  “No, this is Luke’s apartment, he’s a sleep. Can I help you?”

  “Luke and I work together and I have some urgent matters to discuss with him.”

  “Can it wait until morning?” Rachel asked, hoping the man would just go away. Work could wait and it was 10:30 at night.

  Amir, tried to hide his frustration. Just open the door, he thought, and make it easy on all of us.

  “My news could wait until the morning, but I think this is something you both need to hear,” Amir said. “I assume you are Rachel. He mentioned you. I’m glad to see you two together. Should do him good.”

  She was surprised to be recognized by the stranger – especially since Luke and Rachel had been “broken up” for nearly a year and a half. When Rachel closed the door to unlatch the chain and let Amir in, she missed the
thin smile that flashed across his face.

  ***

  Amir helped Rachel fold up the Murphy bed into the wall, once Luke and his broken arm had rolled out of it. They needed the extra seating in the small living area. Luke warmed up a stale cup of coffee to try and break the cobwebs from his brain.

  Amir wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead. He looked nervous. More so than the first day Luke met him in the MassEnergy auditorium when his right leg wouldn’t stop bouncing up and down and he was listening to his smuggled-in headphones.

  “There’s something that I need to tell you and I’m not very happy about it,” Amir spoke at his typical rapid pace. “Not very happy with myself. I mean, I’m a good guy. I think I am. I have a family and I raised my kid right and I don’t think I’ve done the right thing yet. And I want to do the right thing.”

  “Do the right thing about what?” Luke asked.

  “I wasn’t supposed to be involved, I was supposed to just do my job and that was it. No one said I was supposed to do anything else. Or let people do things that were wrong, but it happened and I don’t want it to happen again. And I think it might, so I want to help.”

  “Amir, what are we talking about? Are you in trouble? Can I help?”

  “Not me. You.”

  Rachel handed Amir a bottle of water, which he downed in several long gulps. Luke and Rachel were leaning forward in their seats, waiting for him to spit out whatever it was that he needed to say. It was obviously weighing on him.

  “The day after we started at MassEnergy, I was assigned a side project that I didn’t tell anyone about. And after I tell you what it was, you’ll know why I didn’t say anything. They offered me a 25 percent increase in my salary if I would help with this particular project. You’ve met my wife. You know she’s out of work and we’re living paycheck to paycheck with my daughter. I had to do it.”

  “What was the assignment?”

  “They said that because of the secret nature of the projects we were working on in the pods, that they needed to keep an eye on the employees. They wanted to make sure that no one was double-dipping – selling our secrets to the competition.”

  Luke and Rachel shared a quick glance, knowing what that might mean for them. Amir ignored it and kept on.

  “Beckman was worried about you since you used to work for StuTech. He wasn’t too keen on the idea of having you running around the company because he couldn’t be sure that you weren’t still working for StuTech. That’s why he wanted you on the Dev Floor right away, more security than the pods. It’s laughable really. Corporate espionage? I told him that I knew you and thought the idea that you were some sort of double agent was absolutely ridiculous.”

  “Got that right. Ridiculous,” Luke said.

  “He asked me to keep an eye on you and several other employees, while going about my regular job. Beckman said it was good business to keep a tight ship. I didn’t see anything wrong with it. He is so worried about this Senate Bill, the WES Act, now that it’s about to come up for a vote.”

  “Why you? There were dozens of new employees that they could have asked.“

  “Beckman knew I was an Army intelligence officer and was familiar with handling sensitive information. I feel like an idiot now. He just wanted someone who would follow orders.”

  “OK, so they asked you to keep an eye on me, so what? I think that’s fair. I don’t have anything to hide,” Luke said, but of course, he did.

  “I know and I told him that, but he wanted more. Luke, I’m ashamed to say this, but I followed you and Kathryn to Arizona and the Caribbean.”

  “You tailed me?”

  “Because that’s what he asked me to do. I’m truly sorry,” Amir said. His voice was calm and sincere.

  “You said that you had something both of us needed to hear. What is it?” Rachel asked.

  “Your car accident wasn’t an accident at all,” Amir said in a voice just above a whisper. “It was deliberate and I let it happen.”

  Tears welled up in his eyes. He covered his face with his hands. He was shaking and sobbing. Luke and Rachel shared another glance, neither one knowing exactly where this conversation was headed.

  “Luke fell asleep at the wheel and overcorrected,” Rachel said. “How did you let it happen?”

  “Right, I was tired, but I don’t remember the actual accident very well,” Luke said.

  “That’s why you’re in danger. They tried to run you off the road and kill you for the rock samples you were bringing to the lab.”

  “Kill me? Wait, who?”

  “Beckman. He wanted to eliminate you, but not before getting the samples for himself.”

  The news rocked Luke. He’d been worried about Warren Evans and StuTech, not Beckman.

  “Beckman knew you were bringing back some new mineral that was supposed to be the missing link to making the Tesla project finally work,” Amir said. “Kathryn told him that you two needed a private plane back to Portland. He wanted those samples for himself and didn’t want to share the credit with either of you. The samples were the prize.”

  “Amir, forgive me, but I don’t know you from someone off the street,” Rachel said. “Why would you know all this and why would you tell us now?”

  “I’m here because I don’t want to follow orders anymore. I played along with Beckman and MassEnergy. I’ve seen what they are capable of and it needs to stop. I’m probably putting myself in danger for just being here. Maybe I should just go.”

  He stood and grabbed his jacket.

  “No, please stay. I want to know why this happened,” Luke said, pointing to the 12 stitches on his forehead with his broken left arm.

  Amir looked at Rachel who motioned for him to sit back down.

  “Beckman arranged for a car service to pick up you and Kathryn from the executive airport. But instead you got two rental cars.”

  “The airport concierge said there was a mix up at the car service,” Luke said.

  “That’s where I made a mistake. I overheard Beckman planning what I thought was a carjacking with someone on the phone. I had already tapped his office line so I could listen to his calls. You were supposed to get into the car and somewhere along the route to the office, the man was supposed to stage a carjacking and get the samples. Beckman instructed him to do whatever he needed to do to make it happen.”

  “You created the mix up at the car service, so we had to take the rental cars,” Luke said. “If they were planning on killing me, why the hell didn’t you just tell me that before I got into the car?”

  “I didn’t know that then. Beckman’s instructions to the man were vague and I assumed that he just wanted the samples and the credit. He didn’t say anything about hurting you. I didn’t know who the hired gun was and I thought that if you two split up in different cars that he’d have no choice but to abort the whole thing. I don’t know why he went after you and not Kathryn.”

  “If we weren’t in danger, why would you get in the middle of it and send the cars?”

  “I didn’t think Beckman deserved the credit – I know what you had to go through to get the samples.”

  Luke wanted to ask what Amir knew about their dive in Nevis and what he told Beckman, but he was confused about the car mix up.

  “So you’re telling me that Beckman tried to kill me for the samples that he personally ordered us to go get? That doesn’t make any sense. We were driving to his office to deliver the samples to him personally.”

  “What happened to your samples?”

  “I don’t know. They weren’t in the car when we went looking today. I think that maybe they were ejected from the car when I crashed.”

  “I don’t know how they got there, but as we speak, the lab techs are analyzing rock samples from Nevis. They started the day after you came home. I’m leading the project to analyze them.”

  Luke was starting to wonder if Kathryn somehow orchestrated his car accident. He wouldn’t put it past her.

  “Have you le
arned anything from the samples yet?”

  Not yet, no. We’re working overtime on it because there’s some big shipment coming in tomorrow. It’s all been pretty hush-hush, but rumor has it that it contains pure elements for ARC.”

  “Where did it come from?” Luke asked.

  “I’m not sure, somewhere in Europe.”

  Rachel hid her surprise. She had a pretty good guess what little country in Europe the shipment came from – Moldova. Probably near Arionesti.

  Chapter 52

  Kathryn stood overlooking the Development Floor on the Green Level of MassEnergy’s campus. The dark walls of the sunken work area were a stark contrast to the jubilant voices coming from the employees below. It had been like that since she returned. They were finally making progress. James Beckman actually gave her a big, uncomfortable hug when she presented him with the rock samples. The samples that no one knew she had taken from the ocean floor.

  Back on Nevis, she had almost laughed when Estevan asked if she knew how to scuba dive, but kept it to herself, knowing it might be an advantage. She too was a certified diver. Her experience was mostly in lakes in Texas, not the open ocean, but she certainly knew her way around the equipment. Her improvised panic attack on the ocean floor worked exactly as she had planned. Luke went off by himself and she had time to collect her own samples. She simply replaced the weights in her buoyancy vest with the rock samples she collected. Her assortment of rocks was about a quarter of the size of what Luke had brought up.

  She thought of Luke lying in the hospital. Why should she feel guilty about it, she thought? He wasn’t about to let her carry the samples once they made it back to shore. He wanted the glory for himself. He wanted to be the one getting all the credit from Beckman. He wanted to cash in too.

  When the samples were inspected, Beckman had immediately ordered all of the Research and Development teams to start working on analyzing the samples.