Off the Grid (22 page)

“And this,” he said, handing her his carbine. “I’ll take my shotgun along.”

“I’ve never fired a gun in my life,” she said, holding the rifle as if it were a live snake.

“High time to start, then,” he said.

“Great,” she said in a mocking faux drawl.
“Let’s go kill us some A-rabs.”

“They might be Persians.”

“Whatever.”

•   •   •

T
HEY WEREN
’
T A
HUNDRED YARDS
south of his dead pickup when they heard trucks rumbling across the desert. The sound came in waves carried by northeasterly breezes.

They turned as one. Joe raised his binoculars.

“Four white trucks,” he said. He lowered the glasses and scanned the horizon. The ridge where the pickup with the EMP had been was straight south.

He gripped her elbow and said, “Run. Let’s get to those rocks before they see us.”

•   •   •

“T
HEY
’
RE APPROACHING
my pickup cautiously,” he said to Jan. “The guys in the back of the trucks have their rifles up.”

Joe watched them with his binoculars through the crack of an ancient yellow boulder that was one of several on the ridgeline about two hundred yards from his pickup. Jan kept hidden behind him.

“I think they’re worried about the Game and Fish logo on the side of my truck,” he said. “They’re looking around, wondering where I am.”

Three minutes later, Joe said, “They’ve decided I’m not there. Now they’re looting the cab and the gearbox. They’re throwing everything out on the ground.”

Joe tried to think of anything of value he’d left behind, something the armed men might be able to use to their advantage. He couldn’t think of anything.

“Crap,” Joe said. “One of them found one of my red uniform shirts behind the seat. He’s holding it up for the others. They’re getting a good laugh out of it.”

“Is he putting it on?” Jan asked.

“Nope. He threw it down and stomped on it.”

“Subtle,” she said.

As he watched them, he panned the lenses from the first truck to the third, looking closely at the vehicles. Texas plates, all right. He could make out a few numbers and letters, but he couldn’t see the entirety of a single plate. What he did see, though, made him gasp.

“What?” she asked.

“I’m not sure you want to know.”

“Now I do,” she said, annoyed.

He took a breath. He said, “They’ve got the head of the grizzly bear mounted on the grille of the first truck. And they’ve got the bear paws wired to the hoods of the second and third trucks. Man, that makes me mad.”

The severed paws were the size of catcher’s mitts.

“That’s disgusting,” she said. “And don’t forget poor Cooter.”

“Poor Cooter,” Joe echoed. But he was thinking about GB-53.

•   •   •

J
OE
WATCHED IN SILENCE
for a minute or two before he said, “Oh, great.”

“What now?”

“Listen.”

There was a six-count before the
whump
.

The smell of burning tires, fuel, and interior fabric would take moments to reach them.

“They’re just fools,” Joe said.

“Why?”

“They’re burning my truck to the ground to prevent me from getting into it and driving off. They’re fools because they don’t know
I can’t even start it
.”

“So the joke’s on them, I guess,” she said.

“Yup,” he said with a heavy sigh.

•   •   •

J
OE DIDN
’
T STAND UP
until the four trucks and all the men in them were gone, but he could see their dust trails clearly. They were headed south.

Toward the old sheep ranch.

Nate stayed out of the sight lines of the oncoming vehicles—including his Jeep, which was being driven by the Yemeni—and slipped back into the office in the third shed, assuming the armory would be there.

It was: behind a sliding door made of cheap paneling like the rest of the room.

When he saw the huge steel gun safe, he said, “Shit.”

The full-sized steel Liberty safe had a high-gloss finish and a five-spoke handle mounted next to a combination dial. He knew that a safe of that size cost north of five thousand dollars, which meant Ibby was serious about keeping weapons out of the hands of everybody except Saeed and his men.

Nate had some experience cracking small combination locks by placing downward pressure on the lock itself, clearing the tumblers, and then starting at
0
, but there was no way he could attempt to open a safe of this size and complexity. Judging by how heavy and
stout it was, he doubted he could open it with power tools or even explosives.

Would Suzy Gudenkauf know the combination? Probably not, but it was worth running her down and asking her. Ibby certainly knew, and so did Saeed.

Nate was flummoxed and he felt something in his chest that was unfamiliar: a stab of panic. He needed to contact Tyrell and Volk and tell them where he was and what was going on. Despite Ibby’s careful planning and blithe assurances that the EMPs would minimize casualties, Nate knew better. Plans like that
never
worked out as envisioned.

Plus, the presence of Saeed and his men—and the possible new additions Suzy had warned of—meant that the likelihood of them concluding their operations after the Utah Data Center was unlikely at best. With weapons like those, Nate thought, the incentive to keep going would be mighty. Extremely powerful mobile EMP devices rolling anonymously across the nation’s highway system could be a disaster, and something Ibby couldn’t control—provided he actually intended to stop with the UDC. The devices, if they worked as Ibby had described them, could wreak havoc beyond belief.

Plus, he needed to get Sheridan off the ranch without creating a situation that drew attention to the act.

And most of all, he needed his weapon back.

Nate stepped back and closed the door. He could hear the two vehicles enter the ranch compound and drive into the second shed just beyond the office wall. Both motors were turned off and doors slammed shut. There was a muffled conversation in Arabic.

How would he explain being inside the office when they arrived?

•   •   •

“S
O HOW ARE MY BIRDS
?” Nate asked Saeed while he strode through the shed door toward his parked Jeep.

Saeed looked up in surprise. The Yemeni and the Syrian both squared up, the Yemeni reaching across his body and touching the grip of his weapon. They looked to Saeed for guidance on how to proceed. There was something going on between the three of them, Nate thought, and his presence was interfering with it. Both gunmen looked eager and ready to unsling the rifles from their shoulders and take him out of the picture.

He ignored them while he pulled on a heavy welder’s glove he’d taken from the bed of his Jeep and lifted the gyrfalcon to inspect it.

“I need to feed my guys,” Nate said to Saeed. “I’ve been waiting for you to get back so that I could.”

“I don’t understand this devotion you and Ibby have to your falcons,” Saeed said. “It’s childish.”

“Maybe so,” Nate said.

Saeed simply watched Nate, his face implacable. Out of the corner of his eye, Nate saw Saeed check his wristwatch. It was a tell, he thought. Something was going to happen soon and Saeed was tracking the time.

“I need my gun back,” Nate said.

“That’s not possible right now,” Saeed said. “Go play with your birds. Why do you need a gun to play with your birds?”

The Yemeni smirked. He obviously understood English better than the Syrian, who remained stone-faced.

“Because,” Nate said, “I may have to kill you all.”

He let it linger for a second, then grinned.

Saeed did not smile back.

•   •   •

T
HE OUT
SIDE DOOR
flew open and Henn filled the doorframe. The light of day streamed around him and turned him into a silhouette. He seemed exercised. “Is Ibby in here?”

His arrival broke the tension slightly. Saeed said, “No.”

“I need to talk to him right away.”

Nate noticed that Henn had something in his hand. An oblong instrument of some kind.

“Why?” Saeed asked.

“One of the volunteers snuck out into the ditch. He said he went out to pee, but I think he might have stashed some weed out there. You know how they are.”

Saeed raised his eyebrows, as if to say
Why is this my problem?

“He found this,” Henn said, coming in. As he left the bright white doorframe, Nate could see what he had in his hand: the satellite phone Nate had stashed in the gopher hole.

Saeed took it from Henn and looked it over.

“It’s an advanced piece of equipment,” Henn said. “Somebody must have smuggled it in here and hidden it. I’m thinking one of the volunteers, but why? Maybe I’m paranoid and there’s an explanation, but it looks like somebody was going to use this phone to call out when we’re literally hours away from deployment.”

Saeed turned the phone over in his hand. “Where was it found?”

“In the dry wash,” Henn said. “Less than a hundred yards from the third shed.”

Nate watched Saeed’s face closely and he could see him thinking. A second later, Saeed’s eyes met his.

“Yours?”

“Yes.”

Both the Yemeni and the Syrian unslung their AK-47s and raised them. Although he didn’t look at them directly, Nate could feel the O-shaped muzzles aimed at him like wide-spaced eyes.

Nate said, “I carry it in case I break down in the middle of nowhere. As you know, cell service is spotty deep in the desert. I didn’t know what the situation was here, and I didn’t want anyone taking my phone.” He paused. “Like you did my weapon.”

After a moment, Henn’s shoulders visibly relaxed and he blew out a long breath. “Well, thank God for that,” he said. “I was thinking all kinds of things.”

“I still am,” Saeed said in a low voice.

“The phone is off,” Nate said. “I keep it off. The only time I used it was the other night after someone tried to kill me. I called my woman to tell her I was all right.”

Nate didn’t further bolster his case. He let it stand.

“I can check that,” Saeed said. “I can tell if you’re lying.”

“Fine by me.”

Saeed thumbed the power button on the phone. The display lit up. Nate held his breath while Saeed scrolled through the display menu.

“No incoming calls,” he said. “And one thirty-second call out to an unknown number.”

“Like I said.”

Saeed continued to study the device while he made a decision. As he did, the muzzles of the AKs didn’t lower an inch.

“I think we’re done here,” Henn said. “We’re done here, right? I need to get back to the trucks and finalize everything.”

Saeed chinned toward the open door, indicating he could go. Then, as Henn backed away, he said, “Get Ibraaheem and come here.”

Henn frowned. “Now? You want me to go get Ibby now?”

“Yes.”

“I told you, we’re doing final tests. I can’t spare the time right now.”

Saeed said, “Get him and bring him here. It won’t take long. Tell him to meet us in the office.”

Throughout the conversation, Nate was acutely aware of the live satellite phone Saeed held in his hand. The longer it was live, he knew, the better chance Tyrell or Volk would have to pinpoint his location. But he prayed they wouldn’t be stupid enough to call. He could imagine the phone ringing, Saeed punching it up, and receiving a string of
What the fuck have you been doing keeping your phone off
expletives that would not only compromise Nate’s position but likely get him killed.

“What is it that can’t wait until later?” Henn asked, his face flushed. “We’re gonna have two hours sitting in the cab of those trucks on the way to Utah. We can talk about whatever it is then, how about?”

“I said get him,” Saeed ordered.

Henn threw up his hands and stormed out.

Nate watched as Saeed turned off the satellite phone. He handed it toward the Syrian and spoke a few words in Arabic. The Syrian nodded, lowered his rifle, and took the phone from him. Saeed dug into the front pocket of his cargo pants and gave the Syrian the keys to Nate’s Jeep as well.

From their gestures and body language, Nate guessed Saeed had
ordered that his phone and keys be locked away with his gun in the safe. Which meant the Syrian also knew the combination.

The phone had been on for maybe ninety seconds, perhaps two minutes. Nate had no idea if Tyrell or Volk had the technical ability to locate it—and him—in that short of a time frame. Or what they’d do with the knowledge.

“We go to the office,” Saeed said to Nate. With his eyes, he ordered the Yemeni to follow them and keep Nate covered.

“Can you tell me why?” Nate asked.

Saeed hesitated for a moment, then said, “I’m in command now. I owe it to Ibraaheem to tell him of the change of plans.”

Nate felt that stab again in his chest as he pondered the words
I’m in command now
and
change of plans
.

•   •   •

I
BBY LOOKED VISIBLY
ANNOYED
when he threw open the door to the office with Henn on his heels. Nate was in a hard-backed chair in the corner, where he’d been ordered to sit, and the Yemeni kept his rifle trained on him from fifteen feet away—far enough that Nate couldn’t throw himself on the weapon without taking several rounds en route.

The Syrian stood in the other corner a few feet from the panel door that hid the safe. His back was to the wall and his AK-47 was held muzzle-down but with his hand holding the grip and his trigger finger extended. He could swing it up and fire in less than a second. He was carefully watching Ibby and Henn as they entered the room.

“What’s going on?” Ibby asked Saeed. “You know we’re about ready to . . .” His voice trailed off as he saw Nate in the corner and
noticed the positioning of the Yemeni and the Syrian. Saeed stood in the center of the room with his arms folded across his chest. There was no doubt he had taken control.

Saeed said, “Shut the door behind you.”

Henn did, and turned back with questions written all over his face. He looked from Ibby to Saeed, then back to Ibby.

Saeed said something in Arabic that sounded both firm and apologetic.

Ibby shook his head as if to deny what he’d heard. He said, “Speak English. We’ll talk in English. What do you mean there’s a change in our plans?”

“We will knock out the data center,” Saeed said. “After all, there are conversations stored there our people don’t want analyzed. But after that we’re taking the EMP trucks to use for other targets.”

Ibby’s eyes flashed and he balled his fists. “No. Absolutely not. We’re making this statement and that’ll be the end of it. We are
not
using those weapons for other targets.”

Saeed said, “It’s out of your hands now, Ibraaheem. It’s out of
my
hands. My commanders say it would be a blasphemy not to use these weapons against the American infidels. It would be
unholy
not to use them, and I agree.”

Saeed reverted back to Arabic and spoke for several minutes. His voice was measured, but Nate could see that whatever he said hit Ibby like hammer blows. Nate could pick out a few words—
jihad, dhimmitude, Allah
—but the rest was incomprehensible.

“The money to develop these devices didn’t come from the Middle East,” Ibby interrupted with anger rising in his voice. “They’re not yours. They don’t belong to you.”

Saeed shrugged as if to say,
So what?

“You know this is what we do, you know that,” Saeed said, switching back to English. “We don’t need to build our own weapons and spend our own money and time. Not when we can let them develop the technology and
we can just take it from them
. It’s an arms race, but they provide our arms.”

“But you’re not taking it from them,” Ibby pleaded. “You’re taking it from
me
.”

“I don’t see a difference.”

“You’re missing the entire point,” Ibby said. “We aren’t making war. We’re making a powerful statement. This is the most important thing I’ve ever done in my life and the only one that’s worth anything. You can’t take that away from me, or from all the people who believe in this cause, and turn it into something . . . brutal. Something medieval.”

“It is right with God,” Saeed said. “The rest of our army is on the way. They should be here any minute.”

•   •   •

“S
O YOU
’
VE BEEN PLANN
ING
this for a long time,” Ibby said. It wasn’t a question. “Tell me, was this the plan years ago when we met? When I told you what I wanted to do and you agreed to come here and provide security?”

Saeed didn’t need to answer. Instead, he turned to the Syrian and nodded, giving him the go-ahead for something obviously prearranged, Nate thought. The Syrian nodded back and shouldered past Ibby and Henn toward the door. The back pocket of his cargo pants bristled with scores of white plastic zip ties.

“Where is he going?” Ibby asked.

“We need to make sure all of your team and those stupid volunteers are under control,” Saeed said. “He’s going to herd them outside the third shed for now.”

“And then what?” Ibby asked, panic in his face.

Saeed didn’t answer. He didn’t need to.

“You can’t do this,” Ibby said, pleading. “This is against everything I stand for, everything I believe. We’ve got to get past this kind of thing, don’t you understand? I thought when we talked about this, you agreed with me. You
acted
like you agreed with me.”

Saeed nodded. “You know as well as I do that lying for a righteous cause is not lying at all. You do remember the lesson of
taqiyya
from your studies at the madrassa, don’t you? You of all people who received the highest level of education?”