Off The Grid (7 page)

Chapter 11

Luke had yet to nail down any specifics on
MassEnergy’s stub and tower plans. There weren’t any large campus buildings that could house a tower that big, but he supposed anything the company created could be built and assembled elsewhere. There were two buildings on campus that he wasn’t allowed to enter – one of them being the Dev Floor where research was conducted. But a large space wasn’t necessarily a requirement to test wireless capacity. At some point tests would have to be conducted in the open air.

The physical structure of the
StuTech towers wasn’t really that complicated, they just had to withstand weather and time. But the receiver coils and transmitters affixed on top of them was where StuTech made its money. They were proprietary and still somewhat of a mystery as to how they worked.

Since electricity was discovered and harnessed for practical use centuries ago, copper was the primary conductor that got it from one place to the other. Copper is relatively cheap, easy to manipulate into shapes and is a great conductor. It was still at the core of power lines and transformers strung across the world, many of which fed
StuTech’s towers.

For decades scientists used copper and other metals in their attempts to wirelessly move electricity from one thing to the next. These experiments were somewhat successful at short distances, but failed when pushed farther and farther. In-home wireless use was even becoming common for mobile devices and medical implants, such as heart pacemakers. These low-energy, practical uses were the catalyst for wireless research, as they could be sold on the market quickly and at a low cost to consumers. Warren Evans’ first foray into wireless devices was a wireless electric vehicle charging station for garages. But that was small potatoes.

Evans had never been happy with using conventional means and struck out to uncover a wireless solution that no one had tried before. Evans would take samples of minerals and various elements he personally discovered or that were sold to him and used them to test his wireless devices. After years of testing, Evans created a process that he claimed distilled common minerals, once thought of as having no practical value, into something that would conduct electricity. He mined this secret material in an area of Colorado called Pueblo Bluff.

He called his material ARC and only
StuTech had it.

Chapter 12

Seattle, Washington

Steve Lunsford sat in his office reading the incoming reports. He was not happy. He was down to seven covert employees in the field – agents he called them. Each report was written in the manner he requested and delivered exactly as he had instructed, but it didn’t matter. His patience with the agents and funding to keep them up and running was wearing thin. He needed to show results or the project would get scrapped. His good buddy Warren Evans had made that abundantly
clear to him.

Millennium Optics had turned out four agents, but keeping up the veil of a legitimate business was difficult and expensive. Also he didn’t like to double up the agents in more than one location because it might raise suspicion at the hiring company. That meant most of his agents were working solo. Solo agents get lazy or make mistakes.

He’d worked long enough in the international espionage world to know what the solitary life meant. He’d been trained by the best the United States government had to offer to assume an identity and carry out a task with no mistakes, no trace of his involvement. He’d gone three years alone in Europe during a deep undercover operation before his mission was complete. But he wasn’t the one in the field anymore. He did his best to train his agents to perform, spending weeks or months with each new recruit. But they were essentially playing themselves, not assuming a new identity that he could shape into a performer. They were completely vulnerable with few skills other than what they brought to the table. He looked at Luke Kincaid’s reports. He was a great example of ambition, but few skills.

His people were spread too thin and he was tasked with covering too much ground. For years he had asked for more resources and more men, but was denied each time. It was a risky venture to protect an empire with a hodgepodge of everyday employees, but that was his role.

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.

“Where 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.”