Off the Grid (4 page)

Tyrell rolled his eyes. “You don’t know Governor Spencer Rulon. He’s a loose cannon, and apparently he found out the same deal was given to Butch Cassidy back in the day. Supposedly, it’s an offer made to ‘honorable outlaws.’”

“And I’ve stuck to that,” Nate interjected. “Dudley also made me promise not to be in contact with Joe Pickett or his family. I’ve stuck to that, too.”

Left unsaid was the incident that had happened the last time Nate had encountered the Pickett family, when he’d thwarted a threat to the then-comatose April Pickett in Billings, Montana. But they’d not really been in “contact” . . .

Nate said, “I’m tired of talking. You said you were here to make a proposal of some kind. Either do it or cut me loose. I don’t even know what kind of federal people you really are.”

“There are hundreds of us from every federal department and agency in Washington,” Tyrell said. “We’re part of a shadow government devoted to national security. We call ourselves the Wolverines, after that band of rebels in the movie
Red Dawn
. You know,
the kids that rose up to defend our democracy using guerrilla tactics. We’re trying to protect the country from the political ruling class who care only about themselves and are too timid to look up and see the dangers we’re facing. We hope you’ll help us.”

Nate said, “I’m not your man. I’m not political. I just want to live my life and be left alone.”

“Then you’re political,” Volk said. “Welcome aboard.”

•   •   •

“T
HE
W
OLVERINES AREN
’
T
about any particular political party,” Tyrell said. “It might surprise you to find out I’m a registered Democrat and Volk here is a die-hard Tea Party Republican. We don’t agree on much, but the one thing we do agree on is maintaining national security. We know that our country is in danger from internal and external enemies. There are people out there who want either to subjugate us or kill us, and our so-called leaders think they have to play by the rules when there aren’t any rules.”

“I don’t see what this has to do with me,” Nate said.

Volk leaned forward. “What Brian meant when he said we’ve got people in every agency and department is that we can make things happen . . . and we can make things go away. The government is so huge and unmanageable that no one will ever know either way. The Wolverines realize we have to win this thing on our own without the ‘leadership’ of Washington. If and when we win it, we can go back to arguing about domestic policies. But if we don’t win it, it’s over.”

“Again,” Nate said, “I don’t see what it has to do with me.”

“The FBI and several other law enforcement agencies have been after you for years,” Tyrell said. “We can now deliver you to them if
we choose to. We can deliver Olivia Brannan as well. But we don’t want to do that. We want to make all the federal charges against you go
poof
. There are prominent Wolverines within the NSA, the CIA, the Pentagon, and the Department of Justice, including the FBI. We even have a couple of secret members on the president’s cabinet and within his national security team. Between them all, we know how to get things done.

“You’ll no longer be a target. In fact, you won’t even exist in any federal law enforcement databases. Agent Stan Dudley will go to pull your file and find out it’s been digitally deleted from the server.”

“And I should believe you why?” Nate asked.

Tyrell sighed while he tapped the laptop’s screen several times. Then he spun it around so Nate could see the screen.

At first, he wasn’t sure what he was looking at other than a kind of Google Maps–type overhead image of a paved two-lane road through a vast sagebrush plain. It looked like a still photo.

“I’ll zoom in,” Tyrell said.

In seconds, Nate could see the roof of a pickup as well as the contents in its bed as the vehicle moved down the highway. There was no other traffic. The shot reminded him of many he’d seen before of an enemy vehicle or convoy moments before it was struck with a missile. Then Nate recognized the truck as belonging to Rodrigo.

“Olivia is in that truck,” Nate said, feeling his anger rise.

“On her way to the Denver airport, no doubt,” Tyrell said. “We’ll have eyes on her all the way there. We’ll have an image of her checking in. And we’ll have an image of her entering and departing the New Orleans airport.”

“So this is a threat,” Nate said.

“Not at all,” Tyrell said, seemingly offended. “I’m just showing you this to prove that we’ve got access to the best surveillance systems our government has to offer. We’re showing you this so you know we’re not blowing smoke.”

Smoke or not, Nate was furious. He sat back and glared at Tyrell. He wanted to launch himself across the table and tear their heads off. A few months ago, he would have. Nate had never liked hard-asses like Tyrell and Volk, no matter who they were with. But it wasn’t just about him anymore. He had Olivia to think about. She didn’t deserve to be collateral damage for his past deeds. He owed it to her to find out what they wanted.

In fact, he didn’t see how he had any choice. Gritting his teeth, he said, “What are you asking me to do in exchange for clearing Liv and me?”

“That’s more like it,” Tyrell said with a warm smile.

Volk said, “Don’t expect a written agreement from us like you got from Dudley. We don’t do written. Written means a record. We don’t do records, either.”

“It probably won’t surprise you,” Tyrell said, “to find out that my name isn’t really Brian Tyrell and he’s not really Keith Volk. Our real names aren’t relevant here, and neither are our agencies. But our offer is rock solid: You accomplish your mission and we will guarantee that you will be left alone to live your life. The files created to build up an indictment against you will be expunged. Plus, you’ll be helping save the country you love and you can help preserve our freedoms and our way of life.”

Both men paused. It was Nate’s move.

After a full silent minute, he said, “Why me, if you have all these people available throughout the government?”

“Many reasons,” Tyrell said. He counted them off by tapping the tabletop with his index finger. “One, you have a unique special ops background. Two, the stakes are high enough on both sides that a deal can be struck. Three, you know the Mountain West and you’re comfortable here. You’ll never be mistaken as an outsider, like us. Plus, you’re not exactly an unknown entity. Certain people like Dr. Bucholz know you by your reputation. There is no way we could establish anyone with an identity like that in a credible way.”

“You’re kind of a homicidal libertarian folk hero,” Volk said with a grin.

“I’m not sure I like that description,” Nate said. Then to Tyrell: “Is that all?”

“No. We’ve left out the most critical attribute: You’re a master falconer. Believe it or not, there isn’t a Wolverine in any position anywhere who knows and practices falconry.”

“Why is that important?” Nate asked.

“We’ll get to that,” Tyrell said, spinning the laptop around so he could access another file. “But first, have you ever hunted with your falcons in the Red Desert?”

“The Red Desert? Here in Wyoming?”

“Where else?”

“Wyoming?”

“We’re tracking potential terrorist activity in all fifty states.”

Tyrell reached forward and drummed his fingers on the tabletop to punctuate each word as he said again,
“All. Fifty. States.”

Nate had absolutely no desire to have anything to do with these men. But they had him, and he knew it.

Later, at dusk, as Nate balanced himself on the cottonwood branch that reached over the bank of the Encampment River, a cloud of tiny Trico flies rolled over the water below him. The bugs were so tightly packed together they looked like a spoor of light-colored smoke. A pod of brown trout beneath the surface noted the Tricos as well; they broke up and rose one by one to sip the bugs that were caught in the film of the surface. The trout barely rippled the water as they fed, but from Nate’s vantage point, he could see them clearly as they emerged from the depths with a slight upward tilt of their open mouths. They looked like slow-motion pistons working in a natural engine as they sucked in bugs.

A herd of seven mule deer—three does, three fawns, and a big but wary buck—ghosted through the trees and brush on the other side of the river until they all stood side by side and drank. They never looked up at Nate and he didn’t move or make a sound. He could hear them slurping.

He thought, as he often did, how even a small river like the
Encampment provided the absolute lifeblood to a dry mountain state like Wyoming. Find the water, he thought, and you’ll find life.

The deer raised their heads when an upstream beaver slapped the water with its tail. The sound startled Nate as well, and he realized how jumpy he was.

And no wonder. The day had started off with a nightmare and it had only gotten stranger with the arrival of Tyrell and Volk. Nate half expected to wake up and realize it had all been some kind of interconnected fever dream.

But it wasn’t. It had happened.

And the next morning, he’d transport his birds and his gear less than a hundred miles to the west beyond the Sierra Madre mountains.

To the nine-thousand-square-mile anomaly filled with dunes, mesas, hoodoos, canyons, and harsh vistas known as the Red Desert. Where there was very little water at all.

•   •   •

“H
IS GIVEN NAME
is Muhammad Ibraaheem,” Tyrell had said, gesturing to the screen of his laptop. “He’s twenty-nine years old next month. He grew up in Georgetown as the oldest son of the ambassador to the U.S. from the Kingdom. He was born in Jeddah, but his father brought him to this country when he was five. He went to private schools in Virginia, where he excelled. As a senior in high school, he was rated the number-one placekicker in the country and he was offered dozens of scholarships. Unfortunately, the summer before he went to college, he was in a car accident with his mother and their driver that trashed his knee.

“Instead of playing football,” Tyrell went on, “Ibraaheem got his
bachelor’s degree at the University of Michigan and his master’s at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. At both universities, he wrote for the college newspapers and participated in student government. From everything we can find, he was popular, well liked, and considered a brilliant student. He’s fluent in four languages: English, French, Spanish, and Arabic. He was known as ‘Ibby,’ not Muhammad. Although he is certainly considered a devout Muslim—with his dad being who he is, he
better
be—he wasn’t known to be strident and certainly not extreme in his religious views. He’s what we’d call a moderate or even secular Muslim, like the great majority within that religion.

“He wrote a lot of articles and op-eds at USC and there isn’t a hint of Islamic extremism in any of them. Believe me, we’ve read them all. If anything, he went out of his way to avoid religious or political subjects. And he was a hell of a good sportswriter.”

“An all-American boy,” Volk said with a barely suppressed sneer.

The photo of Ibraaheem confirmed everything Tyrell had said so far, Nate observed. He was dark, good-looking, and had a jaunty but confident smile. His eyes were warm and intelligent. In the photo, he wore a USC hoodie and was surrounded by a dozen students who looked like they were on their way to, or from, a football game. It was a beautiful Southern California day with palm trees in the background and a perfect blue sky. Two blond and pleasant-looking female students were draped on him, and Ibraaheem looked at the camera like he couldn’t believe his luck, either. Black curls reflected the sun.

“He got hired straight out of J-school by an international wire service to be a foreign correspondent,” Tyrell said. “You can guess
that his connections and language skills helped in that regard, and he traveled all over the world filing stories. Europe, Russia, Argentina, China. If you do a Google search you can find his byline on hundreds of stories over the last six years. His last ports of call were Saudi, Yemen, and Syria. Then . . . nothing.

“For six years he was the hardest-working journalist in the world,” Tyrell added. “Then he dropped off the map.

“No calls, emails, texts, nothing.”

Nate raised his eyebrows.

“Exactly,” Volk said. “You can see how that aroused our interest. And then this came up.” Volk tapped on the screen and spun the computer back around. On the screen was a pixelated black-and-white photo of five men huddled in conversation outside of what looked like a mosque. Four of the men wore robes, but one didn’t.

“These guys are high-value al-Qaeda militants in Yemen. It was taken two years ago by a drone, but initially overlooked,” Volk said. “Look at the figure on the right.”

The slim man in Western dress had his back to the camera but there was a quarter view of his face as he turned his head toward the others. Nate shook his head. The photo was too blurry to make a positive identification.

Volk said, “I know it isn’t definitive, but it
could
be him. The build is the same, at least. We know he was in Yemen at the time.”

Tyrell took over. “There’s an unofficial-slash-official policy to check up on every citizen with a U.S. passport who has returned here after spending time in an ISIS-controlled territory: Syria, Iraq, Yemen, et cetera.

“So a couple of special agents went to visit the Ibraaheem family. It didn’t go well,” Tyrell said. “In fact, the ambassador filed an
official complaint against the two FBI guys who showed up at his house to check on the well-being of his oldest son. It wasn’t just any complaint—it went straight to the president. It turns out our administration is working closely with people in the Kingdom to implement a super-secret antiterrorism strategy within the Middle East. The ambassador—Ibby’s dad—is the primary conduit. He said the FBI agents harassed him, and they both lost their jobs because of it. The ambassador is apparently a
very
special diplomat.”

Volk snorted and sat back. He said, “Those poor FBI guys never knew what hit them.”

Nate asked, “Was Ibby there?”

Tyrell and Volk again exchanged glances.

“No, he wasn’t,” Tyrell said. “His family claims they don’t know where he is. There’s a reason why Ibby has gone completely off the grid. He doesn’t want to be found.”

“I sympathize,” Nate said. “But what does any of this have to do with me, and why is it so important that you had to hunt me down?”

“Because,” Tyrell said, “there’s been chatter intercepted overseas about an upcoming terror event. We don’t know who’s involved or when it’s supposed to happen, but our people think it’s going to be huge. It’s supposed to take place out here in the Mountain West, where no one expects it. They want to show us that no one anywhere is safe.”

“Isn’t there always chatter?” Nate asked skeptically.

“Yes. Sorting it out is like trying to get a drink from a fire hose, but we believe this to be credible.”

Tyrell stopped speaking while he opened another file on his laptop.

Volk used the opening to cut in. “And it’s more than just the
chatter. Other things have happened in this sector. A couple of tractor-trailers were stolen from truck stops along I-80 while the drivers were away from their vehicles. There have been at least three large-scale thefts of oil field equipment and copper tubing. Someone broke into the warehouse of a huge sporting goods company and hauled out survival gear and weapons, and they were very specific about what they took: tents, generators, high-powered rifles and ammunition, freeze-dried food, camouflage clothing.”

“So?”

“The crimes and what was taken cross-check with certain words and phrases our spooks picked up in the chatter stream at the same time. Bad guys in Europe and the Middle East were talking about semitrucks and electronic gear hours after they were stolen over here. We don’t have enough intel to connect the dots—but we know there are dots to connect. And
that’s
why we’re here, and here’s why
you’re
here.”

Tyrell spun the laptop around to him again. On the screen was another photo taken from a satellite or drone of what was obviously a falconer flying a bird in the desert. Nate leaned forward as Tyrell clicked to zoom it in.

The man in the photo was in the act of swinging a lure around his head. A lure was a piece of bird wing tied to a line that would draw the attention of a raptor in the air and entice it back in from the sky. At the top of the photo was a blurred image of a falcon in a stoop.

The falconer looked a lot like Ibby.

“This was taken two months ago, less than a hundred miles from here.”

Nate had guessed this part. “So Ibby’s a falconer.”

“He has been since he was a child,” Tyrell said, scrolling through photo after photo of a young Ibraaheem with a succession of falcons: kestrels, red tails, prairie falcons, peregrines, goshawks. “You know all about this, don’t you? The thing Middle Eastern royals have for falconry.”

Nate nodded.

“You have a unique opportunity to be able to check him out,” Volk said, “one falconer to another. Try to figure out what his deal is, what he’s been doing these past two years. And, of course, let us know if he appears to be a part of this impending threat.”

Nate closed his eyes briefly, and when he opened them he was angry again. He said,
“You people are out of your minds.”

“What do you mean?” Tyrell asked. His neck was flushed red.

“Falconers are loners,” Nate said. “That’s a big part of the appeal. If you’re a dedicated falconer, you devote your life to falconry. Everything you do is structured around your birds and hunting. We aren’t a bunch of sociable guys who hang out together. That goes against everything we believe in.”

“Oh, come on,” Tyrell said with some heat. “We’ve got files upon files on falconry conclaves overseas. Sheiks and their royal family members fly their 737s to the desert, put up tents, and hunt together.”

Nate nodded. “They do. And they’ll pay thousands for a raptor that they’ll use only once or twice a year. But other than falconry itself, there is no similarity between their brand of falconry and ours.

“Over here, we’re outlaws and loners. We don’t get together like a social club. When we do get together on occasion, all we do is argue
and fight. We’re like a bunch of farmers and ranchers and we don’t agree on much. We’re independent. We’re
American
,” he said.

“Ibby is about as unlikely to want to talk to me as I would be to talk to him. He’s doing his thing with his birds in the desert and he doesn’t want to be encroached on by another falconer. He’d resent the hell out of me moving into his turf.

“Why is it so incomprehensible to you two,” Nate asked, “that maybe Ibby had a bellyful of politics, religion, and war and he’s dropped out to fly his falcons for a while? Nature is a powerful narcotic, boys. Once you step into it and accept how beautiful and cruel it is, you want to stay there. How do you know Ibby doesn’t just want to be left alone to practice falconry?”

Tyrell said, “We don’t. That’s why you’re here. You’re going to find out.”

“Either that,” Volk said with a harsh grin, “or you can go on and on for years about ‘beautiful nature’ to federal correctional officers in prison, and you’ll likely never see Olivia Brannan again. Your choice.”

“I would have stated it with a little more diplomacy,” Tyrell said. “But he’s right.”

Nate felt a black gloom settle over him.

“One more thing,” Volk said, “and this is important. If you’re caught or exposed, we’ve never heard of you and you can’t expect us to use any influence to get you out of your predicament. If either of those things happen, you’re dead to us. No one will believe you were recruited by the Wolverines because no one knows the Wolverines exist. You can’t point to us”—he gestured to Tyrell and himself—“because the names we gave you don’t exist, either. We’re phantoms.

“We need you, because if you’re caught or exposed, it won’t lead back to us or the administration. Things are so out of control around the world right now that we can’t risk the Kingdom thinking we’re targeting the son of their highest official. That would be a disaster, and we can’t afford disasters. Got that?”

“Got it,” Nate said bitterly.

•   •   •

N
ATE SHINNIED DOWN
the tree in the dark. He still had to feed his falcons in their mews.

Could he believe or even trust Tyrell and Volk? He wasn’t sure.

But they’d found him and they were tracking Liv. He didn’t see that he had a choice but to do what they wanted. Nate wished Joe Pickett was around to talk to. Joe often had wisdom that surprised them both.

They’d given Nate an advanced compact satellite phone. He was to keep the phone hidden away and it was to be used only for communicating directly with Tyrell and Volk. Their two private numbers were already programmed into the display. The phone had encryption technology in it, Tyrell said, that not only prevented anyone from listening in but also instantly wiped out any record that a call was made and to whom.

Nate assumed the device also had a GPS chip that would keep them informed as to his exact location even when the telephone was powered down.

•   •   •

H
E NARROWED HIS EYES
when he sensed something out of place near the cabin. It was too dark to see the grounds clearly, though,
and the moon fused through the trees at an angle that cast everything in half-light. It was not yet dark enough that the stars could illuminate the ground. Nate drew his weapon and held it down at his side as he slipped from tree to tree.