Off The Grid (30 page)

Chapter 68

Palo Alto, California

Two days later

Luke hadn’t been back to the Stanford Campus in well over 10 years. The terracotta roofs and brick buildings were a pleasant reminder of his four years at the school. Four years where he rarely left campus for anything other than soccer games and odd jobs. The campus had undergone a few upgrades, including a new wing on a student activity center, but in general it was the same conservative, well-kept place he remembered.

He was counting on several other things remaining the same as well, such as his access code to the Earth Sciences building, otherwise their collection of the rock samples was just a bag of paperweights. They had kept off the radar over the last two days, but had also monitored the media on their phones. No mention of a death at the Pueblo Bluff facility. StuTech was keeping things in house.

It was Friday night, but the campus was still hopping with activity as co-eds and their friends went out to celebrate the end of another arduous week of academic study. Luke and Rachel picked up some school-logo gear at the university bookstore in an attempt to blend in.

“Nobody’s going to believe I’m a college student,” Rachel said, admiring her cardinal red sweatshirt in the mirror. “I’m about 10 years too late.”

“If anyone asks, we’ll just say you’re a super senior on the six-year plan.” Luke said.

“Very funny.”

The road trip from California to Colorado and now back to California was an exhausting experience. They made it to the school in two days. The three of them traded shifts at the wheel, until they dropped Kathryn off at the Las Vegas airport. Kathryn would stick to her vacation and relaxation story and fly back to Portland that day.

Rachel was still shaken by Amir’s death. Although it was she who alerted Luke to Amir’s dishonesty back in Portland. His insistence on trying to pin Luke’s car accident on Beckman was questionable, given his story about switching out the town car for two rental cars. Something was off, she was certain of it. Nonetheless, she never imagined that it would come down to her ending the man’s life. The smell of burning flesh seemed to be trapped in her nostrils and burned into her hair. She couldn’t shake it.

She was strong enough to realize that by ending one life, she’d saved two others and possibly her own at the same time. But she’d still had trouble sleeping the last two nights and it wasn’t just because they were in a car driving 75 to 80 miles an hour. Every time she closed her eyes she saw the body hunched over the bank of wires. She couldn’t shake the smell. 

“You saved my life,” Luke said when they were finally alone on a deserted stretch of Nevada highway. “I can’t thank you enough. He wasn’t going to hesitate. He was going to kill us.”

“I know,” she said softly, staring off into the distance of desert night. “I’m just glad I came around the long way to the substation, otherwise we’d all be dead.”

The time alone in the car was good for the couple. No matter what happened from this point on, they had no intention of ever leaving each other again. Their partnership was so much stronger now than it ever was before. There was only one thing blocking their complete happiness – the mysterious rocks they were about to analyze. But so many questions remained.

If they could confirm
StuTech was intentionally manipulating the market, would Rachel have the courage to stand up to her father and put an end to it? She’d been under his thumb her entire life. And at what lengths would he go to silence them? Would he send another man like Amir to kill them?

Luke was also concerned about the samples from Nevis. There was a strong chance that they were not connected to the others. Even if
Deep World Oceans was controlled by StuTech, they didn’t know who was pulling the strings at either company. Now that MassEnergy knew of the Nevis site, who was to stop them from mining it? It was possible that Luke had in fact unwittingly provided MassEnergy the missing pieces it needed to build its wireless systems. Maybe it was for the best. But they couldn’t answer any of these questions until Luke analyzed the samples.

***

Stanford had an Earth Element Particle Analyzer, locked away in the laboratory of the McDonald Building for Computational Earth and Environmental Sciences. It was nearly identical to the machine that the techs at MassEnergy were using to reverse-engineer StuTech’s tower and stubs. Now that he had samples from Nevis, Moldova and Colorado, he could analyze them and compare the results.

The McDonald Building was dark as they approached a side entrance. Luke didn’t have a magnetic scan card to unlock the door, so he tried his old pass code – his sister’s birthday. Nothing, just as he feared, they still cleaned out the personal access codes every semester.

“The outside access is controlled by different systems,” he told Rachel. “It’s a redundancy built in so that someone breaking in would have to know more than one code, or get past more than one set of locks. I suspect the inside codes haven’t changed. They never did before. The professors are lazy and hate to remember new codes.”

“But if we can’t get in to find out, it really doesn’t matter,” she said.

“Have some faith.”

Just off the cobblestone pathway to the entrance was a landscaped flowerbed with three dwarf trees and a rock lining. Luke dug a small hole in the rocks under the middle tree and pulled up a yellow plastic keychain. Hanging from the chain was a silver key fob.

“I can’t believe it’s still here,” Luke said. “They only allowed so many access cards, so the lab assistants buried this key here so that we didn’t have to call into the lab and interrupt each other to get in.”

He waved the key fob over the access control plate and the door clicked. They were in.

Chapter 69

Luke kept the shades of the laboratory drawn through the night. Rachel finally got some fitful sleep in a reclining desk chair while he worked. He was on his second pot of coffee, but his night was rather productive considering how exhausted he was. The Earth Element Particle Analyzer was a hexagon with a cylindrical glass insert on the top. Luke placed each separate sample element in the insert, closed it with the side clips and lowered it down into the machine for analysis.

The time in the machine was dependant on the weight and size of the item placed inside. The Nevis and Colorado samples were pure rock samples, but the Moldova sample was already refined down to a substance like ash. Each rock sample ran for just over two hours inside the machine. The Moldova sample took less than an hour. Once it was finished the machine spit out a glossy cash-register style list of elements.

It was morning before all three samples had been analyzed. Luke woke up Rachel to show her the results.

“They are identical,” he said. “There are minor variations that you would expect from being mined in different parts of the world and contamination from transport, but these are the same fundamental elements.”

“So my father has been pulling the wool over the eyes of the entire world for his own greedy benefit,” she said.

“I’m afraid so, but there’s something else. After I ran the Colorado samples to form our baseline of material, I cross-referenced it with the specifications I downloaded from Amir’s computer. The MassEnergy techs provided him a list of the elements they found when they reverse-engineered the StuTech systems.”

“In English, please.”

“None of these samples contain all of the elements included in the towers. StuTech has been adding its own mixture of elements.”

“Wouldn’t you expect that they had to combine several things to get the ‘secret sauce,’ as my father always called it?”

“Yes, but I did a mathematical analysis of the radio frequency that we could reasonably expect to come from the three samples. I then compared that to the signal strengths that I used to work on when I was designing residential systems for StuTech.”

“What did that show you?”

Luke didn’t have the chance to answer as they both turned at the sound of the laboratory door latching shut. Luke was once again facing down the barrel of a gun, this time held by Steve Lunsford. Another man, wearing a Chicago Cubs hat, followed Lunsford into the room.

“Let me tell you what that means, my dear Rachel,” Lunsford said, walking the outer aisle of the laboratory, toward the Earth Element Particle Analyzer. “It means that your father has been gaming the system for years. Intentionally making a weak product to sell more towers. You see
, if he’d cranked these puppies up to full capacity, he’d only be able to sell a few every hundred miles, but with his diminished product he has to sell dozens of them instead of just one. Crafty, isn’t it?”

Rachel ignored the comment and spoke directly to Alan Grant.

“You’ve come a long way from the mountains of Bolivia, Alan.”

“
Gotta follow the money. You know how it is. Sorry about all this. We’re just going to be-”

“That’s enough,” Lunsford said. “If I want you to talk, I’ll tell you what to say.”

Luke wasn’t feeling any more comfortable with a gun pointed at him now than he did two days ago, but he spoke up anyway.

“Why did you send me into
MassEnergy. What possible benefit did it have?”

“You haven’t figured it out by now? I didn’t pick you. Why would I? Her father did.”

“Did he tell you why he picked me?” Luke asked, knowing full well that Lunsford could easily lie.

“He didn’t have to, you twit,” Lunsford spat. “Just look at that pretty little thing next to you. I wouldn’t want you as my son-in-law either. I have to give you two a little credit though. You just about messed up my whole operation too, you’re a sticky pair.”

“So you are the one who sent MassEnergy the refined minerals from Moldova,” Rachel said.

“In the flesh my dear. But you make it sound like charity work. Nothing is free. I got a nice little piece of the pie from
MassEnergy for that windfall. If Warren wasn’t going to see the big picture, someone had to. He was right about one thing though, he just wanted you out of her life,” he pointed the gun at Rachel. ”Didn’t seem to work though, seeing as you’re here together. But we can take care of that right now.”

He cocked the slide and raised the gun, leveling it at Luke’s head. The muzzle of the gun had a long round extension attached to it that Luke recognized from the movies as a silencer. The precaution meant Lunsford could shoot the gun without the sound alerting people outside the building. He intended to use it.

“Steve, don’t,” Alan said in a firm voice from the other side of the lab. “No way, I didn’t agree to this. We’re supposed to get the samples and go. That’s it. That’s what you said.”

“I told you what happened to Amir. Poor guy got roasted – well done. Ok, it was probably the most effective way to contain that little bastard, but still – bold move from these two.”

“I didn’t sign up for this,” Alan said, raising his arms as if to surrender his involvement. “At least not the girl.”

“Having second thoughts after Luke survived your little car accident? Got a little crush on the sweet tart here, do you? Tough. These two have been a thorn in my side since the day I laid eyes on them. No more. I’m done playing second fiddle to a crazy old miser like Warren Evans and I can’t have these two ruining all of the work I’ve put in to this
MassEnergy deal. I earned it.”

“Then I’m outta here,” Alan said. “I can’t be a part of this.”

“You already are,” Lunsford gave him a crooked grin. “You’re my fall guy, after all. You should never have tried to kill these two.”

Lunsford whipped the gun around and shot Alan twice.

Snap. Snap.
The silenced bullets hit him in the chest. He fell backward against a steel sink before hitting the ground with a thud.

Turning back to Luke and Rachel, “Now we have a cozy little story to go along with your deaths. Three geeks in a lab killed each other off. Tidy. I like it.”

The tears streaked down Rachel’s face as she watched a second man die in front of her in as many days.

“You’re a monster,” she said, standing up to face him.

“Whoa there, don’t come any closer,” he said.

She continued to walk toward him, ignoring the gun.

“You’ve always been a low tier employee at StuTech,” she said. Her voice was almost a whisper and Lunsford had to lean in to hear her. “My father told me that he only keeps you employed out of pity. It’s a wonder you’re still around, the way he treats you. Of course, your only recourse is theft and murder, so what kind of man are you?”

Lunsford nearly stumbled over a stool as Rachel continued to advance on him, but kept on his feet. The slight distraction gave Luke enough time to reach into the front pocket of his hooded Stanford sweatshirt and pop off the cap to a sample vial from Moldova. He poured it into his hand, clamped his fist around it and put his hand back at his side.

He was now side by side with Rachel. He placed his other hand on her shoulder.

“I can’t let you do this,” he said, stepping in front of her and raising his hands above his head to surrender, knowing that Rachel wouldn’t have any of it. As she pushed her way past him, Lunsford took his eyes off of Luke and looked back to Rachel, even though she was still behind Luke.

Luke threw his fist full of ash toward Lunsford’s face, blasting him in the eyes. He immediately raised his hands to his face, trying to rub out the bits of chalky rock and dust.

Luke hit him full force in the chest and wrapped his arms around the man, taking him to the ground. The gun went flying through the air and landed on a counter, smashing glass beakers and cylinders before coming to a rest against a tiled wall.

Lunsford was blinded, but not defenseless. The older man was built like an ox and pushed Luke off of him with ease. He thrashed about wildly on the floor, trying to make contact with his attacker, but Luke had already moved out of his reach. Lunsford was on his feet in no time. Rachel let out a small scream as Lunsford picked up a compact metal microscope and waved it around, trying to hit Luke. He followed the sound of her scream and started for her.

Trying to avoid the blunt object, Luke went to his knees and did what he’d been taught to do for years on the soccer field. He executed a clean slide tackle, tripping the man. Lunsford fell face first to the ground and into the blunt microscope he clutched in his hand. His head cracked into it and then the ground. He was out cold, but probably not for long.

Luke checked his pulse. He was still alive.

“Call 9-1-1 and go unlock the front door for them,” he said. Rachel raced to the phone.

Luke used the cord of the microscope to bind Lunsford’s hands and feet. It was only moments before Lunsford came to again.

“You little S.O.B.,” he said, unable to move on the floor. His eyes shot darts of hatred. “You think when the cops show up and find a dead guy and a man hogtied that they won’t think it was you who did it?”

“Steve, you’re not the greatest teacher, but I did learn something from you. Always cover your ass.”

Luke wiggled the mouse of a desktop computer sitting near the Earth Element Particle Analyzer. Four moving images appeared on the screen - four different camera angles from all four corners of the room.

“You just murdered a man on video and then tried to do the same to us. I don’t think there is a jury in the country that wouldn’t convict you.”