Off the Grid (A Gerrit O'Rourke Novel) (16 page)

Gerrit dropped back on the bed. He felt weak, and the news seemed to wrench away any strength he had left. So the cops thought that Russian organized crime might be responsible.

Richard Kane covered his tracks well.

He thought of Senator Summers. Could he be involved in his own daughter’s death? This seemed highly unlikely. The senator might be the person to start with to get some straight answers. Maybe Marilynn’s father finally had enough of Kane and might be willing to talk.

He heard several sets of footsteps on the porch outside. The door swung open and Alena and two men entered. She smiled as he turned toward her. “We are so pleased you are alive. I worried.” She came to his bedside, stroking his forehead. “How do you feel?”

He glanced at the television before speaking. “Two of my friends are dead, and the world thinks I was blown up. Other than that and a bad headache, I’m doing just great,” he said, anger building up with each word. “How do you think I feel?”

Her eyes softened. “I’m sorry, Gerrit. You heard.”

He looked away and focused on the other two men.

“I want to introduce you to a very special man, my good friend Joe Costello.” She pointed to the older of the two men, who had been intently watching them as Gerrit and Alena conversed. The man stepped forward, extending his hand. His freckled face and curly reddish-brown hair—lightened by the onslaught of gray—complemented his hazel eyes. The man looked to be pushing seventy.

“Glad to meet you, Dr. O’Rourke. I’ve been wanting to talk with you for a long time.”

Something about the man’s voice sounded very familiar, as did the man’s eyes. Very familiar. “Have we met before?”

Joe smiled. “A long, long time ago, Gerrit. Before we get into all that, I want you to meet a very good friend of mine: Travis Mays. This is his cabin. He’s a professor at Washington State University in Pullman.”

Travis stepped forward and shook Gerrit’s hand. “I am glad to see you awake and breathing, Detective. You gave us all a scare.”

Gerrit felt something cold and wet press against his arm. A dog’s nose. He glanced down, thinking it was Bones. It wasn’t.

Travis laughed. “Let me introduce you to another member of this household. Sam…Sam Spade.” A yellow lab nudged his arm almost on command.

“Glad to meet you, Sam.” Gerrit smiled as he stroked the dog’s head. Bones emerged behind Sam, tail wagging. Gerrit looked up at Travis. “Thanks for putting me up here.”

“Hey, glad to help. And Sam’s thrilled to have a new friend.”

“I’ll try to be out of here real soon.”

Joe took a step closer. “That’s what we need to talk about. A lot has happened while you were out.” Joe drew up a chair and nodded at the others. Alena and Travis headed toward the door, with Sam padding behind. Alena turned for a moment. “We’ll take a walk and give you two a chance to talk.”

Bones seemed undecided. Alena coaxed the dog outside and closed the door.

Joe watched them leave and then turned and smiled at Gerrit . Those eyes seemed so familiar to Gerrit, just like his… No, it can’t be.

The man seemed to fathom what Gerrit was thinking. “So you are starting to understand.”

Gerrit stared back. “It’s impossible. My dad and mom…” He couldn’t bring himself to utter the words.

The man leaned closer and took Gerrit’s hand. “Your mother and father were killed because of what your father tried to do. To make the world safer for everyone. They died as true heroes.”

“Some lowlife blew them up and got away scot-free. Wrong place. Wrong time. How do you figure they’re heroes?”

“Because they were willing to put their lives on the line for something they believed in. Just like you did in Iraq and Afghanistan. A family of heroes…and one coward.”

“One coward?” Gerrit stared at the other man.

“I should have died that day with your folks. Instead…”

An eye-piercing pain shot through his forehead as Gerrit tried to focus, tried to understand. “Are you telling me—?”

“Joe Costello’s not my real name, Gerrit. I’m Joseph O’Rourke, your uncle.” Joe faced Gerrit. “Reconstructive surgery can really change one’s features.”

“I thought you were dead.”

“I should have been,” Joe said, a look of sadness in his eyes. “I should have died that day with your folks.”

“What happened?”

“Before I tell you, I just want you to know that I—along with Alena and others—have watched over you ever since we believed Kane might be targeting you. It has taken seven years, but Richard Kane finally made his move. Finally tried to kill what he thought was the only surviving member of the O’Rourke family.”

“Why is Kane trying to do this?”

“That’s what I am here to tell you. About Kane, and about a war going on inside our own country. It is about whether we will survive as one nation under God.” Joe leaned back in his chair. “I’d better start from the beginning.”

B
efore his uncle could begin, Gerrit heard a car braking outside and looked through a cabin window. A patrol vehicle with Nez Perce Tribal Police markings pulled off the highway on the far side of the river. A man in plain clothes and a woman emerged. Police officers?

He glanced at his uncle. “Should we get out of here?”

Joe shook his head. “They’re on our side. His name is Frank White Eagle, chief of the Nez Perce tribal police, and his daughter, Jessie. Both are close friends of Travis Mays.”

“And how does Mays figure into this?”

“He helped me disappear after they killed your parents. We met through the university many years ago when I was a panelist on a cyber-security symposium in Seattle. Travis was an ex-cop teaching criminology. He introduced himself and posed some interesting questions that made me pay attention to this guy. We struck up a friendship, and when—”

“You were there when Mom and Dad died?”

“Nearby. I was in Seattle at the time. Found out that night I might be the next target. At the time, I knew very few people in law enforcement I could trust. Travis was one of them. He put me in touch with an FBI agent. Together, they and another person helped me disappear.” Joe looked around the cabin. “That’s when it all started. The day I became Joseph Costello.”

“And your face? I see you still have my father’s eyes. And I remember your voice. But everything else…”

“Yeah. I had them reconstruct my face and Malloy—FBI Special Agent Beck Malloy—contacted a source in the U.S. Marshals office. Between the four of us—and my knowledge of computer systems—we created who I am today.”

Gerrit steeled himself. “Tell me why you called yourself a—”

“Coward?” Joe finished the sentence, a look of regret darkening his face. “First, you need a little background. Your dad, through his work at MIT, became aware of certain outside influences on some of his fellow researchers in the area of nanotechnology, quantum computers, and biotechnology. Governmental and private interests working together to gather and control any research developed in these fields—particularly in the U.S.”

“That would be impossible to control,” Gerrit said. “There are too many studies and too many researchers to allow any one group to control their efforts and findings.”

Joe nodded. “True. However, what your dad learned was that this group—whoever they are—was able to control government financing for any projects of interest. This was a big hammer to wave in front of those researchers scrambling for money. And what this group could not control, they began to monitor and sabotage.”

“You mean like blow up and destroy?”

“In a way. Key scientists yanked from their projects through any number of dirty tricks—trumped-up criminal charges, accidents, medical issues, fabricated claims about their characters. The list just keeps growing.”

“And my folks?”

“This is why your dad was upset when you redeployed to Iraq. He wanted you to return to MIT, where the two of you could start digging into this. He didn’t know who to trust.”

Gerrit lowered his eyes, thinking back just before his last tour of duty overseas. He had gotten a weekend pass to fly to Boston and meet with his folks before shipping out. His father could barely hold in his anger after Gerrit refused to allow him to intercede to get him removed from full duty. His father wanted to use his military and political contacts to have Gerrit return to MIT.

“I have something really important I need your help with, son. Others can serve their country over there. You already sacrificed. And they don’t have your special skills—those gifts you can bring to the table to help me in a special research project. It is important.”

But Gerrit dug in his heels.

Vainly, his father persisted “It’s a matter of life and death, Gerrit. I need your help.”

“Tell me what it is. I have people depending on me to keep them alive over there. What can be so important on that campus that I should turn my back on them and help you?”

His father’s angry eyes bore down on him, jaws clenched. “I can’t tell you—unless you are cleared to work with me.”

Gerrit’s stomach tightened as he thought of that last day. “I can’t, Dad. I’ve given my word. My men need me.”

“I need you, son.”

Gerrit slowly shook his head. He watched as a look of abject failure crept into his father’s eyes.

“Then we have nothing further to discuss.” His father stormed away. They never spoke to each other again.

Voices outside the cabin caught Gerrit’s attention. He heard Alena speaking to another woman. The group walked back toward the river, leaving Joe and Gerrit to continue their conversation.

“Your dad came to me after I joined Argonne National Laboratory outside Chicago just before his death. He knew we both were going to be in Seattle for a conference, and he wanted to introduce me to some of his contacts in an investigation he had quietly launched. He didn’t tell me any details but mentioned that they kept hearing about a project called Operation Megiddo. He didn’t know what it represented or who was behind it, but he learned the project had to do with significant breakthroughs in computer technology. A part of it dealt with my field—cyber-security technologies.”

“Megiddo?” Gerrit sounded it out. “Among other references, Megiddo is a place in Israel, a historical location. And you know what it means translated into the Hebrew?”

Joe nodded. “Mountain of Megiddo. Better known as Armageddon. Biblical references tell us that in the end times, Christ will return to defeat the anti-Christ in the battle of Armageddon, although I believe the actual battle will take place near Jerusalem. Satan’s forces will gather at Megiddo before that final confrontation.”

“Interesting choice of the word—Megiddo.” Gerrit grappled with this implication. He didn’t want to get into a theological discussion about eschatology. They had enough to worry about in the here and now. “Did you find out more about Operation Megiddo?”

Joe held up his hand. “Let’s take this one step at a time. It gets very complicated.” His uncle stood and walked toward the window, peering outside for a moment. Finally, he turned to face Gerrit. “Tom—your dad—warned me they had learned that several scientists died under questionable circumstances. But he could not get anyone to tell him the specifics of their deaths or the investigations into these matters. It was like some powerful hand clamped down on these cases. Once each death investigation was closed, the findings became classified as accidental death or death by natural causes. Your dad even mentioned he and your mom received threats. That they were warned to keep their noses out of other people’s business. He felt they might be under surveillance and wanted me to come on board to help.”

“Did you?”

His uncle’s head lowered, an expression of regret painted across the man’s face. “At first, I said I would. Then one day, as I was leaving Argonne, two men in an unmarked vehicle pulled me over. They yanked me out of the car, dragged me into the back of their vehicle, and drove to a commercial high-rise under construction. They took me to the top floor, an unfinished level without walls or railings. We must have been twenty stories high. They grabbed me by the ankles and flipped me over the edge, dangling me in the air while I screamed for help.”

His uncle clearly was reliving that moment. “What happened, Uncle Joe?”

The older man looked up, a look of fear lancing in his eyes. “They let me scream until my voice turned hoarse. I thought they were going to kill me, looking at the ground and knowing I was about to fall to my death. They eventually raised me up to safety, pulled me inside, and threw me on the ground. I can still remember their laughter, like it was some big joke.”

His eyes glistened, and Joe covered his face to hide his shame. Gerrit remained quiet, allowing his uncle to gather himself.

“They said this was just an example of what they’d do next if I helped your folks. Next time—if I didn’t play ball—they’d let me suffer a long time before killing me. Slowly and painfully.” He looked up at Gerrit. “I believed them.”

He came and sat next to Gerrit. “I met your dad in Seattle and told him I wanted nothing to do with his investigation. That I thought he was a fool to continue to poke his nose where it did not belong.”